FROM   THE   LIBRARY   OF 
REV.    LOUIS    FITZGERALD    BENSON,   D.  D. 

BEQUEATHED    BY    HIM   TO 

THE   LIBRARY   OF 

PRINCETON  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


Division! 

Section       t00\\ 


EARLY   EASTERN   CHRISTIANITY 


EARLY         /T 

(     FEB  22  1932  * 

EASTERN    CHRISTIANITY 

ST.   MARGARET'S   LECTURES 

1904 

ON    THE    SYRIAC-SPEAKING 
CHURCH 

BY    F.    CRAWFORD    BURKITT 

LECTURER    IN    PAL/EOGRAPHY   IN    THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   CAMBRIDGE 


NEW   YORK 

E.    P.    DUTTON   &   COMPANY 

1904 


Printed  in  Great  Britain 


TO   THE    MEMORY   OF 
WILLIAM    CURETON,    D.D., 

CANON  OF  WESTMINSTER   FROM    1 849   TO    1 864 
AND   RECTOR  OF   S.   MARGARET'S 

THIS    BOOK    IS    DEDICATED 


PREFACE 

"Early  Eastern  Christianity,"  the  title  which 
I  have  given  to  these  six  Lectures,  may  possibly 
be  held  to  be  a  misleading  name.  My  Lectures 
are  an  attempt  to  sketch  the  leading  character- 
istics of  the  ancient  Church  of  Edessa  and  the 
Euphrates  Valley  from  the  earliest  times  to  the 
Council  of  Chalcedon.  The  "Eastern  Church" 
in  popular  usage  generally  means  something 
geographically  wider.  We  think  of  Greeks  and 
of  Russians,  of  Alexandria  and  Constantinople. 
But  compared  with  the  Church  about  which  I 
have  written  these  names  belong  to  the  West, 
to  the  great  Church  within  the  Roman  Empire. 
It  is  the  unique  distinction  of  the  Church  of  the 
Euphrates  Valley,  that  alone  among  the  develop- 
ments of  Christianity  in  the  ante-Nicene  age  it 
had  some  of  its  roots  in  a  realm  outside  the 
Roman  Empire,  and  that  the  language  of  its 
learning  and  its  aspirations  was  a  tongue  akin  to 
that  of  Palestine. 

It  would  have  been  possible  to  trace  out  some 


Vlll  PREFACE 

of  those  elements  in  the  Grseco- Roman  Church 
which  were  most  akin  to  the  ideas  and  practices 
which  flourished  at  Edessa.  To  name  but  one 
notable  example,  it  would  be  extremely  interesting 
to  compare  in  detail  the  theological  and  ethical 
standpoint  of  the  newly  discovered  Acts  of  Paul 
with  that  of  Serapion  of  Antioch  and  his  disciple 
Palut.  But  apart  from  considerations  of  space  it 
seemed  to  me  better  to  let  Syriac  Christianity 
speak  for  itself.  It  is  a  far-away  tale  of  a 
vanished  civilisation,  but  an  excursion  into  this 
remote  region  may  give  us  a  new  point  of  view 
from  which  to  look  at  our  own  ideals  and  beliefs. 

It  only  remains  to  say  that  the  photographs  of 
Edessa  in  this  volume  were  very  kindly  taken  for 
me  by  Fr.  Raphael  of  the  Capuchin  Mission  at 
Urfa.  The  two  great  Columns  in  the  Frontis- 
piece were  set  up  in  the  days  of  paganism,  and 
fragments  of  their  Dedication  Inscription  are  still 
legible  upon  one  of  them.  Below  this  may  be 
seen  a  few  letters  containing  the  Moslem  pro- 
fession of  faith  cut  in  an  early  Arabic  character. 
Between  the  period  covered  by  these  two  Inscrip- 
tions must  be  placed  the  rise  of  Christianity  in 
Edessa  and  its  slow  decline. 


CONTENTS. 


I.   THE   EARLY   BISHOPS   OF   EDESSA 
II.   THE   BIBLE   IN   SYRIAC  . 

III.  EARLY   SYRIAC  THEOLOGY    . 

IV.  MARRIAGE  AND   THE   SACRAMENTS 

V.   BARDAISAN   AND   HIS   DISCIPLES  . 

VI.   THE  ACTS   OF  JUDAS    THOMAS    AND    THE   HYMN  OF 
THE  SOUL 


I 

39 

79 

uS 

155 
193 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  TWO  GREAT  COLUMNS   ON  THE  CITADEL 

OF  edessa Frontispiece 

The  view  taken  looks  very  nearly  N.  E. 

EDESSA To  face  page       39 

View  looking  S.S.  IV. 

EDESSA •  .  „  „  79 

View  looking  W.S.  W.,  with  the  Citadel  of  Abgar 
and  the  two  great  Columns  in  the  background. 
The  hill  on  the  right  was  where  Shamona  and 
Guria  were  martyred  A.D.  297. 

EDESSA „  „  155 

View  looking  W.N.  IV. 

EDESSA „  „  193 

View  looking  N.N.  W. 


"  S.  Chrysostome  that  lived  in  S.  Hieromes  time,  giveth  evidence 
with  him:  The  doctrine  of  S.  John  [saith  he)  did  not  in  such  sort 
(as  the  Philosophers  did)  vanish  away  :  but  the  Syrians,  Egyptians, 
Indians,  Persians,  Ethiopians,  and  infinite  other  nations  being- 
barbarous  people,  translated  it  into  their  (mother)  tongue,  and 
have  learned  to  be  (true)  Philosophers,  he  meaneth  Christians." 
— Preface  to  the  Authorised  Version,  ante  vied. 


LECTURE    I 

THE    EARLY    BISHOPS    OF    EDESSA 

When  I  was  asked  by  Canon  Henson  to  deliver 
the  S.  Margaret's  Lectures  for  1904  upon  the 
early  history  of  the  Syriac-speaking  Church,  I 
quite  understood  that  what  was  required  would 
be  something  rather  different  from  a  regular 
academical  course.  The  study  of  antiquity  is  a 
fascinating  pursuit  to  the  student,  but  the  great 
mass  of  Englishmen  are  not  students,  nor  do  they 
wish  to  become  students.  Most  of  us  have  some- 
thing else  to  do,  and  time  is  limited  for  all  of  us. 
We  have  no  time  to  follow  the  expert  in  his  in- 
vestigations, and  very  little  even  to  listen  to  the 
declaration  of  the  results  which  he  has  attained 
when  his  investigations  are  ended.  This  is  the 
case,  not  because  we  wish  to  belittle  the  value 
of  the  study  of  antiquity  in  general  or  of  oriental 
antiquity  in  particular,  but  because  there  is  so 
much  demanding  our  attention  which  is  nearer 
in  time  and  place.  I  feel,  therefore,  that  I  must 
begin   by    giving   some    reasons   why    any   one 


2  THE   EARLY   BISHOPS  OF   EDESSA 

beyond  professed  students  should  give  their 
attention  at  all  to  this  comparatively  out-of-the- 
way  subject. 

The  historical  method  of  studying  our  religion, 
as  opposed  to  the  philosophical  method,  needs 
little  defence,  at  least  to  those  who  belong  to  the 
Church  of  England.  The  Christianity  we  profess 
is  not  a  formal  theory  but  an  organic  growth,  the 
result  of  a  long  historical  process.  The  appeal  to 
the  "continuity  of  the  Church"  and  the  "historic 
episcopate" — to  name  two  familiar  catchwords — 
is  a  witness  to  the  importance  of  a  historical 
presentation  of  Anglican  Christianity.  In  other 
words,  the  well-instructed  Christian  ought  to  have 
a  clear  general  view  of  the  development  of  the 
organisation  of  which  he  is  a  member. 

The  controversies  which  at  various  times  have 
agitated  the  Church  sometimes  appear  after  the 
lapse  of  ages  to  be  battles  of  words  and  names. 
Neither  the  orthodox  nor  the  heterodox  party 
seem  at  first  to  be  fighting  for  the  great  questions 
which  interest  us.  When  we  study  more  carefully 
we  learn,  as  it  were,  the  language  of  the  con- 
troversy, we  gain  an  insight  into  the  principles 
at  stake,  and  in  very  many  cases  we  see  that 
the  orthodox  side  was  fighting  for  the  cause  of 
real  progress.  I  do  not  mean  that  they  were 
fighting  for  the  "  Rights  of  Man  "  or  the  principles 


THE  ANCIENT   CONTROVERSIES  3 

of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  of 
America,  or  for  any  of  the  platforms  which  at 
present  are  advocated  by  any  existing  party. 
But  given  the  conditions  of  the  time,  the  orthodox 
decision  was  generally  the  solution  which  made 
the  development  of  the  Church  possible,  and 
protected  it  best  from  the  ever-recurring  danger 
of  relapse  into  heathenism.  Thus  it  may  be 
argued,  with  very  great  probability,  that  Arianism 
meant  the  re-introduction  of  the  Pantheon  and 
the  Hierarchy  of  the  Gods  into  the  official 
religion  of  the  Empire,  that  the  various  forms 
of  Gnosticism  practically  involved  the  denial 
of  the  real  humanity  of  our  Lord,  that  the 
struggle  of  the  Church  with  Montanism  was  the 
fight  of  Order  against  Anarchy,  and,  to  come 
to  a  later  time,  that  the  development  of  the 
mediaeval  Papacy  was  necessary  to  keep  the 
Church  together  in  the  face  of  the  disintegrating 
effects  of  the  barbarian  conquests. 

Yet  this  way  of  looking  at  Church  History  is 
not  quite  satisfactory.  It  is  not  really  scientific, 
because  it  is  not  experimental.  We  only  know, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  how  the  Church  did  develop 
upon  the  one  line.  What  would  have  happened 
had  the  Church  become  Arian  or  Sabellian  or 
Montanist  we  do  not  know.  It  is  all  a  matter 
for  conjecture,  because  it  did  not  really  happen. 


4  THE   EARLY   BISHOrS  OF   EDESSA 

We  can,  it  is  true,  compare  the  development  of 
those  parts  of  Western  Christendom  which  split 
off  into  separate  organic  life  at  the  time  of  the 
Reformation  with  the  development  of  that  portion 
which  remained  obedient  to  Rome.  But  this 
is  altogether  too  late  for  our  purpose.  Moreover, 
the  Catholic  may  always  say  that  these  separated 
bodies,  whatever  sacramental  graces  they  may 
have  carried  off  with  them,  are  schismatics, 
separated  from  the  true  Body  of  Christ. 

The  Church  we  are  about  to  consider  in  these 
Lectures  is  not  open  to  any  of  these  strictures. 
It  believed  itself  to  have  had  an  apostolic  origin, 
and  the  great  Church  within  the  Roman  Empire 
admitted  the  claim.  It  was  in  full  communion 
with  all  the  chief  centres  of  Christianity.  The 
Saints  of  the  Syriac-speaking  Church  are  Saints 
of  the  Church  universal,  so  far  as  their  fame 
reached  the  West.  Nevertheless  there  is  a  real 
difference  between  the  Church  of  Edessa  and 
the  Church  of  Antioch  and  of  Rome.  They  were 
divided  by  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  divisions 
between  man  and  man — the  barrier  of  language. 
During  the  years  we  shall  chiefly  consider  this 
barrier  simply  acted  as  a  partition,  as  a  dividing- 
line.  It  did  not  estrange  the  Syriac-speaking 
Christians  from  their  brethren  over  the  border, 
but   it   separated  them,   so   that  the   Church   of 


SYRIAC  AND  GREEK  CHRISTIANITY  5 

which  they  were  members  grew  up  to  some 
extent  under  influences  different  from  those 
which  helped  to  mould  the  Gneco  -  Roman 
Church  of  the  Empire. 

In  this  lies  the  importance  for  us  of  Early 
Syriac  -  speaking  Christianity.  It  is  the  nearest 
thing  we  can  get  to  an  experiment  in  Church 
History,  to  a  history  of  the  Church  as  it  might 
have  been,  had  its  environment  been  different. 
We  shall  not  expect  therefore  that  the  value  of 
our  study  will  consist  chiefly  in  noting  improve- 
ments in  the  fabric  of  our  own  Church  which 
we  can  adopt  from  the  Syrians.  Such  direct 
importations  are  not  likely  to  fit  themselves 
organically  into  our  Western  conditions  of  life 
and  thought,  though  here  and  there  hints  for 
the  Indian  Churchman  may,  perhaps,  be  stored 
up.  I  would  rather  suggest  that  our  study  will 
help  us  to  modify  our  view  of  the  ancient 
Church.  We  shall  learn  how  difficult  it  is  to 
apply  the  test  quod  semper,  quod  ubique,  quod 
ab  omnibus.  We  shall  learn  that  it  was  possible 
for  an  orthodox  Christianity  to  grow  up,  which 
had  in  some  respects  a  different  theory  of  the 
Christian  community  and  of  social  life  from  that 
which  prevailed  in  the  West.  We  shall  learn, 
above  all,  the  great  lesson  that  a  living 
Christianity  is  not  tied  down  to  a  set  of  forms 


6  THE   EARLY  BISHOPS  OF   EDESSA 

imposed  from  without.  The  century  that  saw 
Syriac-speaking  Christendom  unified  in  externals 
with  the  West  by  men  who  saw  the  power  and 
the  influence  of  external  unity,  saw  also  the 
permanent  dismemberment  of  that  branch  of  the 
Church  into  dissenting  and  hostile  sects.  I  trust 
that  what  are  called  "  our  unhappy  divisions  "  may 
never  be  healed  over  in  this  unreal  fashion. 

The  early  history  of  the  Syriac  -  speaking 
Church  is  to  a  certain  extent  a  matter  of  con- 
jecture and  inference.  The  historical  sources 
are  scanty,  and  most  of  the  accounts  of  the 
earlier  periods  that  we  possess  are  compilations 
in  which  at  least  two  inconsistent  historical 
traditions  have  been  blended.  But  if  we  are  to 
understand  the  Syriac  Christianity  of  the  fourth 
and  fifth  centuries,  we  ought  to  have  some  idea 
of  the  early  development  of  the  Church  in 
Edessa,  the  first  centre  of  Christianity  in  the 
Syriac-speaking  world. 

Edessa  was  the  capital  of  a  small  principality 
east  of  the  Euphrates.  The  town  had  been 
refounded  by  the  Greeks  and  called  by  them 
Edessa,  but  the  Aramaic-speaking  inhabitants  of 
the  place  continued  to  call  it  Urhai,  a  name 
of   uncertain    meaning,   from    which    the    Greeks 


EDESSA   AND   ITS   INHABITANTS  J 

formed  Osrhoene  (or  Orrhoene)  for  the  name  of 
the  district,  and  from  which  comes  the  modern 
name  Urfa  for  the  town.  It  lies  on  one  of 
the  great  trade  routes  to  the  East,  that,  namely, 
which  passes  between  the  great  Syrian  desert 
on  the  South  and  the  mountains  of  Armenia  on 
the  North.  The  inhabitants  of  the  city  and  the 
district  spoke  a  dialect  of  Aramaic  akin  to,  but 
not  identical  with,  that  spoken  in  Palestine  by 
our  Lord  and  His  apostles.  The  town  must 
have  been  a  centre  of  literary  culture  long 
before  the  coming  of  Christianity  to  it,  and  the 
earliest  surviving  writings  have  an  ease  and 
fluidity  which  seem  to  reflect  traces  of  Greek 
influence. 

The  princes  of  Osrhoene  appear  to  have  had 
Arab  blood  in  their  veins,  as  was  the  case  with 
most  of  the  rulers  of  the  little  states  on  the  eastern 
borders  of  the  Roman  Empire.  A  familiar 
instance  is  Aretas  of  Damascus,  mentioned  by 
S.  Paul,  whose  name  is  spelt  Hdritha  by  his 
fellow  -  countrymen.  Similarly,  we  find  among 
the  princes  of  Edessa  names  which  are  almost 
certainly  of  Arab  origin,  like  Maz'ur  and  Wa'el, 
and  probably  this  is  the  case  also  with  Abgar 
and  Ma'nu.  These  were  the  favourite  names 
among  the  Edessene  princes  ;  out  of  the  whole 
thirty,  eleven  were  called  Abgar  and  nine  Ma'nu. 


8  THE   EARLY   BISHOPS  OF   EDESSA 

It   is   not  quite   certain  what   the  names  really 
mean. 

The  external  history  of  Edessa  follows  the 
usual  fortunes  of  a  border  state.  The  realm 
that  had  belonged  to  the  House  of  Seleucus  was 
divided  between  the  Romans  and  the  Parthians, 
and  Osrhoene  lay  on  the  frontier.  Until  the 
end  of  the  second  century  of  our  era  Edessa 
was  outside  the  Roman  Empire,  and  con- 
sequently within  the  Parthian  suzerainty.  In 
the  wars  of  Trajan  it  suffered  severely,  being 
stormed  and  sacked  by  the  Roman  general, 
Lusius  Quietus.1  This  took  place  in  the  August 
of  1 16.  For  a  time  the  state  kept  its  independ- 
ence, but  the  end  was  inevitable.  "  The  feeble 
sovereigns  of  Osrhoene,"  to  quote  the  words 
of  Gibbon,  "  placed  on  the  dangerous  verge  of 
two  contending  empires,  were  attached  from  in- 
clination to  the  Parthian  cause  ;  but  the  superior 
power  of  Rome  exacted  from  them  a  reluctant 
homage,  which  is  still  attested  by  their  medals. 
After  the  conclusion  of  the  Parthian  war  under 
Marcus,  it  was  judged  prudent  to  secure  some 
substantial  pledges  of  their  doubtful  fidelity. 
Forts  were  constructed  in  several  parts  of  the 
country,    and   a    Roman    garrison    was    fixed    in 

1  Dion  Cassius  lxviii  30  {ap.  Xiphiliri)  :  Aoticrios  dt  .   .  .  rty  Staidiy 
dvtXape,  rijv  Te'ESeaaav  i^eiroXidpKrjae  Kal  Si4<pdeipe  Kal  ivtirptpev. 


EDESSA  AND  THE   ROMAN    EMPIRE  9 

the  strong  town  of  Nisibis.  During  the  troubles 
that  followed  the  death  of  Commodus,  the  princes 
of  Osrhoene  attempted  to  shake  off  the  yoke  ; 
but  the  stern  policy  of  Severus  confirmed  their 
independence,  and  the  perfidy  of  Caracalla  com- 
pleted the  easy  conquest.  Abgarus  [i.e.  Abgar 
IX],  the  last  King  of  Edessa,  was  sent  in  chains 
to  Rome,  his  dominions  reduced  into  a  province, 
and  his  capital  dignified  with  the  rank  of  colony  ; 
and  thus  the  Romans,  about  ten  years  before 
the  fall  of  the  Parthian  monarchy,  obtained  a 
firm  and  permanent  establishment  beyond  the 
Euphrates."  l 

The  Romans  took  possession  of  Edessa  in 
216  a.d.,  just  a  hundred  years  after  the  city  had 
been  sacked  and  burnt  by  Lusius  Quietus.  It 
is  during  that  hundred  years  that  Christianity 
was  planted  in  Edessa,  and  if  I  have  delayed 
somewhat  over  matters  of  profane  history  it  is 
in  the  belief  that  it  is  essential  for  us  to  study 
the  early  history  of  Syriac-speaking  Christianity 
with  a  clear  perception  of  the  general  course 
of  events  during  this  period.  It  will  enable  us 
to  estimate  the  true  historical  value  of  the 
Wends  about  the  foundation  of  the  Church  in 
Edessa,  and,  at  the  same  time,  it  will  help  to 
explain  some  of  the  features    which  distinguish 

1  Gibbon  i  207  f. 


IO  THE   EARLY   BISHOPS   OF   EDESSA 

the   Christianity  of  the   Euphrates   Valley  from 
the  Christianity  of  the  Mediterranean  cities. 

The  establishment  of  a  Christian  community 
at  Edessa  is  an  event  of  real  importance  in  the 
history  of  the  Church.  Edessa  was  the  only 
centre  of  early  Christian  life  where  the  language 
of  the  Christian  community  was  other  than 
Greek.  Christianity,  the  child  of  Judaism,  was 
nursed  by  the  Greek  civilisation  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  for  the  primitive  Semitic  Christianity  of 
Palestine  came  to  an  end  in  the  great  cata- 
strophe of  the  Jewish  War.  Christianity  survived 
among  the  Greek-speaking  population  of  the 
great  towns  of  the  Levant  and  the  ^gean,  and 
in  cosmopolitan  Rome.  The  Church  of  Antioch 
in  Syria,  one  of  the  oldest  of  these  communities, 
was,  so  far  as  we  know,  wholly  Greek.  The 
country  districts,  where  there  was  a  Semitic- 
speaking  population,  seem  to  have  remained 
unevangelised.  Where  the  Jews  had  settled 
the  new  Jewish  Heresy  followed,  but  the  country- 
side remained  pagan. 

When  Christianity  took  root  in  Edessa,  a 
Syriac-speaking  city  with  a  native  dynasty  and 
culture,  the  whole  atmosphere  was  different. 
The  Syriac  language  was  used  in  place  of 
Greek,    and    the    Church    developed   a    national 


ADDAI   AND    KING   ABGAR  II 

spirit.  It  was  not  long  before  Edessa  claimed 
the  special  protection  of  our  Lord.  It  was 
believed  that  the  city  had  been  evangelised 
by  Addai,  one  of  the  seventy-two  disciples, 
that  he  had  been  sent  there  from  Palestine  in 
response  to  a  letter  from  King  Abgar  to  our 
Lord :  nay  more,  that  our  Lord  Himself  had 
answered  Abgar  with  a  promise  that  Edessa 
should  be  blessed,  and  that  no  enemy  should 
ever  have  dominion  over  it. 

The  story  of  Addai  and  King  Abgar  was 
received  by  Eusebius  and  incorporated  into 
his  Ecclesiastical  History.  It  is  intimately 
connected  with  the  various  legends  of  the 
finding  of  the  True  Cross  and  of  the  True 
Likeness  of  Christ,  and  its  reception  forms  a 
curious  chapter  in  the  history  of  human 
credulity.  But  this  legend,  as  contained  in 
the  book  called  the  Doctrine  of  Addai,  is  also 
a  source  of  real  value  for  the  historian.  Un- 
doubtedly it  grew  up  at  Edessa  itself,  attaining 
its  present  shape  by  the  end  of  the  fourth 
century,  or  at  any  rate  before  the  reforms  of 
Rabbula.  The  author's  chronology  is  faulty,  and 
his  grasp  of  history,  secular  and  ecclesiastical, 
is  feeble.  But  he  knew  the  place  he  is  describing. 
The  memory  of  the  reign  of  native  princes  was 
still    fresh    when    he    wrote,    and    the    names   of 


12  THE   EARLY   BISHOPS  OF   EDESSA 

his  personages  are  genuine  survivals  of  the 
ancient  pagan  nomenclature.  Moreover  he  is 
comparatively  so  near  to  the  events  that  his 
narrative  contains  unassimilated  fragments  from 
an  older,  more  historical,  account  of  the  rise  of 
Christianity  in  Edessa.  These  fragments  fit  in 
badly  enough  into  the  main  story,  but  for  that 
very  reason  we  may  be  sure  that  they  were 
not  invented  by  the  author  of  the  Doctrine  of 
Addai. 

Let  me  put  before  you  the  general  outlines  of 
this  ancient  tale.  Abgar  Ukkama — that  is,  Abgar 
the  Black,  who  died  in  50  a.d.  after  a  long  reign 
— sent  an  embassy  to  Sabinus,  the  deputy  of 
the  Emperor  Tiberius,  at  Eleutheropolis  in 
Palestine.  We  may  remark  in  passing  that 
Eleutheropolis  was  first  so  called  by  Septimius 
Severus  in  the  year  200  a.d.,  and  that  its 
importance  as  a  centre  of  government  dates 
from  that  period.  The  nobles  Mariyabh  and 
Shamshagram,  who  with  a  notary  called  Hannan 
comprise  the  embassy  of  Abgar,  pass  over  against 
Jerusalem  on  their  way  home  and  hear  from 
travellers  of  the  fame  of  Jesus  the  Messiah.  They 
decide  to  go  themselves  to  Jerusalem,  and  "when 
they  had  entered  Jerusalem,  they  saw  the 
Messiah  and  rejoiced  with  the  multitudes  who 
were  joined  to  Him,  and  they  saw  also  the  Jews 


THE   MESSAGE  OF  CHRIST  TO  ABGAR  1 3 

standing  in  groups  and  considering  what  they 
should  do  to  Him,  for  they  were  disturbed  to 
see  a  number  of  their  people  confessing  Him. 
And  they  were  there  in  Jerusalem  ten  days, 
and  Hannan  the  notary  wrote  down  everything 
which  he  saw  that  the  Messiah  did.  " a  So  they 
returned  to  King  Abgar,  and  when  Abgar 
heard  he  wished  to  go  himself  to  Palestine, 
but  was  afraid  to  pass  through  the  Roman 
dominions.  He  therefore  sent  a  letter  to  Jesus 
by  the  hand  of  Hannan  the  notary,  and  Hannan 
found  Jesus  in  the  house  of  Gamaliel,  the  chief 
of  the  Jews.  The  letter,  which  begins  "Abgar 
Ukkama  to  Jesus  the  Good  Physician"2  declares 
that  Abgar  has  come  to  the  conclusion  either 
that  Jesus  is  God  come  down  from  heaven  or 
that  He  is  the  Son  of  God,  and  goes  on  to 
invite  Him  to  come  to  Edessa,  to  live  there, 
and  to  cure  the  disease  from  which  he,  Abgar, 
is  suffering. 

When  Jesus  received  this  letter,  He  replied  to 
Hannan  the  notary  :  "Go  and  say  to  thy  Lord 
that  sent  thee  unto  me   '  Happy  art  thou,   that 

1  Doctrine  ofAddai,  p.  2  f. 

2  "Good  Physician"  is  the  reading  of  the  Syriac  (p.  4),  but 
in  Eusebius  {HE  i  13)  and  on  the  ancient  lintel  at  Ephesus  we 
find  "  Good  Saviour."  This  passage  of  the  Doctrine  of  Addai 
appears  to  be  the  earliest  instance  in  which  the  title  Good 
Physician  is  given  to  our  Lord. 


14  THE   EARLY   BISHOPS  OF   EDESSA 

though  thou  hast  not  seen  me,  thou  hast  believed 
in  me ;  for  it  is  written  of  me  that  they  which 
see  me  will  not  believe  in  me,  and  they  which 
see  me  not — they  will  believe  in  me.  Now  as 
to  what  thou  hast  written  to  me,  that  I  should 
come  unto  thee, — that  for  which  I  was  sent 
hither  hath  now  come  to  an  end,  and  I  go  up 
unto  my  Father  that  sent  me ;  but  when  I  have 
gone  up  unto  Him,  I  will  send  thee  one  of  my 
disciples,  that  whatever  disease  thou  hast  he  may 
heal  and  cure.  And  all  that  are  with  thee  he 
shall  turn  to  life  eternal,  and  thy  town  shall  be 
blessed  and  no  enemy  again  shall  have  dominion 
over  it  for  ever.' " 

Such  is  the  famous  letter  of  Christ  to  Abgar. 
It  had  a  curious  after-history.  The  story  seems 
very  early  to  have  been  translated  into  Greek, 
and  the  whole  letter,  with  the  significant  excep- 
tion of  the  last  clauses,  was  inserted  by  Eusebius 
into  his  great  Ecclesiastical  History.  Eusebius 
knew  the  actual  course  of  events  too  well  to 
allow  the  promise  of  the  impregnability  of 
Edessa  to  stand  in  his  book.  So  learned  a 
historian  could  not  forget  the  sack  of  Edessa 
by  Lusius  Quietus  under  Trajan,  and  the 
absorption  of  the  province  of  Osrhoene  into  the 
Empire  a  hundred  years  later.  The  whole 
correspondence     is    very    properly    branded    as 


THE   MESSAGE   OF   CHRIST   TO  ABGAR  1 5 

apocryphal  in  the  fifth  century  Gelasian  decree. 
But  it  had  enjoyed,  and  indeed  still  continued 
to  enjoy,  a  great  popularity.  The  Bodleian 
possesses  some  fragments  of  Greek  papyrus, 
dating  from  the  fourth  or  fifth  century,  which 
contained  it,  and  three  years  ago  a  lintel  was 
found  at  Ephesus  with  the  letters  of  Abgar 
to  Christ  and  Christ  to  Abgar  inscribed  on  it 
in  Greek  characters  almost  contemporary  with 
Eusebius  himself;1  both  these  documents  give 
the  promise  to  the  city  of  Abgar.  The  letter 
of  Christ  was  regarded  as  a  charm,  and  pious 
folk  in  England  in  the  time  of  the  Heptarchy 
still  copied  it  out  and  wore  it  for  a  preservative 
"against  lightning  and  hail  and  perils  by  sea 
and  land,  by  day  and  by  night  and  in  dark 
places."2 

To  return  to  the  Doctrine  of  Addai.  After 
receiving  the  message  to  King  Abgar,  Hannan 
the  notary  painted  a  likeness  of  our  Lord  "in 
choice  colours  "  and  brought  it  to  Edessa,  where 
Abgar  set  it  in  a  place  of  honour.3  At  a  later 
period  this  portrait  was  the  subject  of  many 
wonderful    tales  :    it  was  believed  to  have  been 


1  See  the  Daily  Express  for  May  2,  1900. 

2  See  B.  M.  Royal  2  A  xx,  fol.  12,  printed  in  Dom  Kuypers's 
Book  of  Cerne,  p.  205. 

3  Doctrine  of  Addai,  p.  5. 


l6  THE  EARLY  BISHOPS  OF1   EDESSA 

miraculously  painted  without  human  hands,  and 
it  is  intimately  connected  with  the  well-known 
tale  of  Veronica.  But  these  developments 
belong  to  a  further  stage  of  legend,  and  the 
Doctrine  of  Addai  goes  on  at  once  to  tell  us 
how  after  the  Ascension  the  apostle  Judas 
Thomas  sent  Addai,  one  of  the  seventy-two, 
to  King  Abgar.  We  may  pass  rapidly  over 
the  greater  part  of  the  preaching  of  Addai,  but 
certain  details  demand  our  attention  here. 
When  Addai  comes  to  Edessa  he  lodges  at 
the  house  of  Tobias,  son  of  one  Tobias  a 
Palestinian  Jew,  who  introduces  Addai  to 
Abgar.1  Of  course  Abgar  is  immediately 
healed  and  converted  to  Christianity,  with  large 
numbers  of  his  subjects,  amongst  whom  were 
a  merchant  community  of  Jews.2  The  Jews 
of  Palestine  who  crucified  our  Lord  are 
naturally  held  up  to  obloquy,  but  it  is  remarkable 
that  the  Jews  of  Edessa  are  represented  as 
friendly  to  the  new  teaching. 

The  religion  of  Edessa,  according  to  the 
Doctrine  of  Addai,  was  a  worship  of  the 
Heavenly  Bodies.3  The  references  to  Bel  and 
Nebo  come,  I  fear,  from  the  Old  Testament  and 


1  Doctrine  of  Addai,  p.  6. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  32  f. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  24  f. 


RELIGION   IN   HEATHEN    EDESSA  1 7 

not  from  historical  reminiscence,  but  we  may- 
accept  the  statement  that  the  people  of  Mabbog- 
Hierapolis  worshipped  Tar'atha,  and  that  the 
people  of  Harran  worshipped  a  deity  called  Bath 
Nikal.  Quite  lately  Dr  Rendel  Harris  has 
collected  some  striking  evidence  to  prove  that 
heathen  Edessa  was  especially  devoted  to  the 
Heavenly  Twins,  and  that  it  is  in  their  honour 
that  stars  appear  upon  the  Edessene  coinage. 
The  Doctrine  of  Addai  does  not,  however,  directly 
speak  of  the  Twins,  but  it  mentions  the  worship 
of  the  Sun  and  the  Moon  and  Venus,  and  of 
the  influence  believed  to  be  exerted  by  the 
signs  of  the  Zodiac  generally.  It  is  also  re- 
markable that  the  Doctrine  makes  no  reference 
to  the  two  great  columns  on  the  citadel  which 
still  form  so  striking  a  feature  in  the  Urfa  of 
to-day. 

The  passages  which  speak  about  the  early 
Syriac  Canon  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments, 
and  about  the  manner  of  life  practised  by  the 
converts,  we  shall  consider  in  subsequent  lectures. 
But  for  the  main  question  we  are  now  consider- 
ing, the  question  of  the  general  course  of  the 
history  of  the  Edessene  Church,  the  most  im- 
portant part  of  the  Doctrine  is  its  conclusion. 
We  are  told,  in  itself  a  remarkable  statement, 
that  Addai  died  in  peace  and  honour  during  the 

B 


1 8  THE   EARLY   BISHOPS  OF   EDESSA 

lifetime  of  the  believing  King  Abgar,  and  that 
he  was  succeeded  by  his  disciple  Aggai.1  Some 
very  late  authorities  make  Addai  gain  the  honour 
of  martyrdom,  but  the  peaceful  end  here  given 
to  him  is  one  of  the  indications  that  a  real 
historical  element  is  contained  in  our  main  docu- 
ment. Aggai,  on  the  other  hand,  was  martyred. 
Ma'nu,  one  of  the  sons  of  Abgar,  was  an  un- 
believer, and  when  Aggai  refused  to  make  him 
a  heathen  diadem,  such  as  in  old  days  he  had 
made  for  Abgar  his  father,  this  Ma'nu  sent  and 
broke  Aggai's  legs  as  he  was  sitting  in  the 
Church.  So  Aggai  died,  and  was  buried  in  the 
Church  between  the  places  for  the  men  and  for 
the  women.  And  because  he  died  thus  suddenly 
he  had  no  time  to  ordain  his  successor  Palut,  so 
that  Palut  was  obliged  to  go  to  Antioch  for 
ordination,  where  he  was  ordained  by  Serapion, 
Bishop  of  Antioch. 

Here  is  an  evident  anachronism,  an  ana- 
chronism so  glaring  that  it  must  be  more  than 
a  mere  mistake.  Serapion  of  Antioch  is  a 
personage  known  to  us  from  the  Ecclesiastical 
History  of  Eusebius  as  an  orthodox  writer  and 
a  champion  of  the  Four  Canonical  Gospels,  as 
strict  as  was  S.  Irenaeus,  his  contemporary. 
Serapion  became  Bishop  of  Antioch  in  the  year 

1  Doctrine  of  Addai,  p.  46  f. 


SERAPION   OF  ANTIOCH  19 

190  and  held  the  See  for  about  twenty-one 
years.  If,  therefore,  Serapion  ordained  Palut, 
Palut  could  not  have  been  converted  to 
Christianity  by  one  of  the  seventy-two  Disciples, 
nor  could  the  King  Abgar,  in  whose  reign 
he  lived,  have  been  contemporary  with  our 
Lord. 

We  are  thus  confronted  in  the  Doctrine  of 
Addai  with  two  theories  of  the  rise  of 
Christianity  in  Edessa.  On  the  one  theory, 
which  is  that  maintained  in  the  body  of  the 
work,  Christianity  was  planted  there  in  the  first 
century  of  our  era  :  on  the  other,  which  is  that 
of  the  epilogue,  the  third  president  of  the 
Christian  Society  at  Edessa  was  not  ordained 
bishop  till  about  200  a.d.,  and  Christianity  itself 
cannot  have  reached  the  district  much  before  the 
middle  of  the  second  century. 

The  story  of  the  Doctrine  of  Addai  is 
practically  continued  in  a  pair  of  documents 
called  the  Acts  of  SharbU  and  the  Martyrdom 
of  Barsamya.  Barsamya  is  mentioned  in  the 
Doctrine  of  Addai}  and  we  learn  that  he  became 
Bishop  of  Edessa  in  succession  to  'Abshelama 
who  succeeded  Palut.2  Barsamya,  the  Christian 
bishop,  converts  Sharbel,  the  chief  priest  of  Bel 

1  Doctrine  of  Addai,  p.  33. 

•  Cureton's  Ancient  Syriac  Documents,  p.  71. 


20  THE   EARLY   BISHOPS  OF   EDESSA 

and  Nebo :  Sharbel  and  Barsamya  are  both 
arrested,  and  the  former,  after  cruel  tortures,  is 
put  to  death.  Barsamya  is  about  to  undergo  the 
same  fate,  when  a  decree  of  toleration  arrives 
from  the  Emperors  (sic),  and  he  is  dismissed  in 
peace.  In  the  Martyrdom  of  Barsamya  we  find 
again  the  statement  that  Palut  was  ordained  by 
Serapion,  and  in  accordance  with  this  we  are 
told  that  Barsamya  lived  in  the  days  of  Pope 
Fabian  I.,  who  was  martyred  in  a.d.  250  during 
the  Decian  persecution.1  But  elsewhere  in  these 
documents  the  Emperor  is  called  Trajan,  and 
the  persecuting  judge  who  appears  as  supreme 
ruler  in  Edessa  is  called  Lysania  or  Lusianus, 
although  a  heathen  King  Abgar  is  also  men- 
tioned.2 The  view  that  makes  Trajan  the 
persecuting  Emperor  prevailed  in  later  times, 
and  so  the  late  chronicler  Michael  the  Syrian, 
Jacobite  Patriarch  of  Antioch  in  the  twelfth 
century,  assigns  the  martyrdom  of  Sharbel  and 
Barsamya  to  his  reign.3  Yet  even  Michael 
introduces  an  inconsistency,  for  he  adds  that 
at  the  same  time  Euphemia  of  Chalcedon 
suffered  martyrdom,  an  event  which  took  place 
in    307    during    the    Diocletian    persecution.      It 


1  Cureton's  Ancioit  Syriac  Documents,  pp.  61,  71. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  42. 

3  J.  B.  Chabot,  Michelle  Syrien,  p.  175  b. 


THE   EARLY   MARTYRDOMS  21 

will  be  well  to  bear  in  mind  this  glaring  ana- 
chronism when  we  come  to  Michael's  account  of 
Bardaisan. 

The  details  of  the  story  of  Sharbel  and 
Barsamya  do  not  commend  themselves  as 
historical  on  a  close  survey.  Sharbel,  the  con- 
verted heathen  priest,  not  only  reviles  the 
(Greek)  gods  of  paganism  after  the  manner  of 
professional  Christian  Apologists,  but  also  quotes 
the  Psalms  and  the  Prophets  as  if  he  had  been 
long  familiar  with  the  Scriptures.  The  tortures 
to  which  he  is  put  are  absurdly  severe,  but 
they  are  utterly  unable  to  prevent  him  from 
haranguing  the  judge  with  considerable  prolixity. 
Finally  we  are  told  that  the  persecution  ceased 
because  of  the  earthquakes  which  took  place  at 
Rome  when  the  exiled  Christians  were  taking 
away  with  them  the  bones  of  S.  Peter  and 
S.  Paul.  When  the  people  of  Rome  saw  the 
earthquake,  they  besought  the  Christians  to  stay  ; 
so  the  earthquake  ceased,  and  they  all,  both 
Jews  and  Pagans,  confessed  Christ.1  It  is 
obvious  that  not  much  reliance  can  be  placed 
on  a  document  which  contains  such  perversions 
of  fact. 

We  pass  on  a  few  years  and  emerge  at  last 
into  the    light    of  real    history.     In   the  ancient 

1  Cureton,  Ancient  Syriac  Documents,  p.  61. 


22  THE   EARLY   BISHOPS  OF   EDESSA 

Syriac   Kalendar,  edited   by   Dr  Wright  from  a 
MS.  written  in  the  year  41 1,  we  find  on  the  15th 
of  November  the  commemoration   of  Shamona 
and  Guria,  and  on  the  2nd  of  September  the  com- 
memoration    of     Habbib    the     Deacon.       This 
ancient  Kalendar,  or  rather  Martyrology,  knows 
nothing  of  Sharbel  and  Barsamya,  or  of  Aggai, 
a   circumstance    which    tends    to   show    that   the 
cult   of  these   early  martyrs    at   Edessa  did  not 
rest    on    continuous   historical    tradition.       It    is 
different    with    Shamona,    Guria    and    Habbib ; 
their  memory  was  never  forgotten  by  the  Syriac- 
speaking   Church.       Shamona   and    Guria   were 
beheaded  at  the   beginning  of  Diocletian's  per- 
secution  in   297,   and   Habbib   was  burned  alive 
under  Licinius  in  309,  a  couple  of  years  before 
the  edicts  of  toleration.     During  this  period  the 
Bishop  of  Edessa  was  named  Qona.     He  died  in 
313,  after  the  persecutions  had  come  to  an  end, 
and  the  only  act  assigned  to  him  by  chroniclers 
is  the  laying   of  the    foundations  of    the    great 
Church,    which    was    finished    by    his    successor 
Sa'ad  who  died    in   324.       How   Qona  escaped 
during  the    persecution    we   do  not   know.     He 
may  have  been  in  hiding,  or  possibly  the  govern- 
ing officials   may  have  been   unwilling  to  arrest 
persons  of  distinction  for  fear  of  a  riot.     It  is  in 
any   case    noteworthy  that  he  is  neither  praised 


EDESSA   IN    THE  FOURTH   CENTURY  23 

nor   blamed    by   the    writer   of  the  martyrdoms, 
himself  a  contemporary. 

From  the  time  of  Q6na  onwards  the  names 
of  the  bishops  of  Edessa  are  carefully  recorded 
in  the  document  called  the  Chronicum  Edessenum. 
Between  Qona  and  Rabbula  the  See  of  Edessa 
was  held  by  nine  bishops.  Of  these,  Aitalaha, 
the  successor  of  Sa'ad,  was  one  of  the  members 
of  the  great  Council  of  Nicsea  in  325  a.d.  The 
next  but  one  to  Aitalaha  was  Barses,  who  was 
exiled  by  the  Arians.  Rabbula,  who  was  bishop 
from  412  to  435,  will  be  considered  in  following 
lectures.  His  episcopate  is  the  great  landmark 
in  the  history  of  the  Syriac-speaking  Church. 
It  was  while  Rabbula  was  bishop  that  the  older 
heretics  came  to  an  end,  and  the  new  parties 
of  Monophysites  and  Nestorians  first  became 
defined.  In  ritual  and  discipline  also  his  rule 
marks  the  end  of  the  old  and  the  beginning  of 
the  new. 

One  great  event  in  general  history  during  the 
fourth  century  must  be  briefly  noticed  here. 
The  invasion  of  Mesopotamia  by  the  Huns  from 
the  North  in  the  year  395  was  a  public  calamity 
and  is  mentioned  in  some  Christian  hymns. 
But  it  had  no  influence  on  the  general  develop- 
ment of  the  Church,  and  it  fell  with  equal  force  on 
all  classes  of  the  community.     The  great  Persian 


24  THE   EARLY  BISHOPS  OF   EDESSA 

War  belonged  to  a  very  different  order  of  things. 
It  has  a  real  bearing  on  theology  and  on  Church 
history.  It  lasted  with  intermissions  from  2,37  to 
363,  and  ended  disastrously  for  the  Roman  cause 
after  the  defeat  and  death  of  Julian.  The  Empire 
gave  up  Nisibis  with  all  the  provinces  beyond 
Osrhoene,  and  we  can  still  hear  in  S.  Ephraim's 
discourses  echoes  of  the  dismay  with  which  the 
Christian  population  of  the  East  received  the 
disgraceful  tidings.  "  Grief  compels  me  to 
speak,"  he  writes,  "order  commands  me  to  be 
silent "  ;  and  I  regret  to  say  he  goes  on  to  im- 
prove the  occasion  by  exhorting  his  hearers  at 
Edessa  to  take  warning  by  the  fate  of  Nisibis, 
which  had  no  doubt  perished  because  of  the 
thoughtlessness  and  luxury  of  its  inhabitants  and 
their  immodest  dancing  shoes. 

We  should,  however,  obtain  a  very  imperfect 
representation  of  the  history  of  the  Church  of 
England  if  we  had  to  re-construct  it  merely  from 
published  sermons.  To  the  Christian  subjects 
of  the  Sasanid  monarch  the  war  meant  much 
more  than  an  occasion  which  might  be  turned 
to  good  account  in  the  pulpit.  To  many  of  them, 
indeed,  it  was  literally  a  matter  of  life  and  death. 
For  the  Persian  War  of  the  fourth  century  was 
the  first  great  political  event  in  which  the  Church 
found  itself  taking  a  side.     The   Empire  of  the 


THE   PERSIAN   WAR  25 

Sasanids  was  definitely  national,  Persian,  Zoroas- 
trian,  opposed  to  Christianity ;  and  so,  from  the 
time  that  the  Roman  Empire  became  Christian, 
to  be  a  Persian  Christian  was,  in  the  eyes  of  the 
King  of  Kings  and  his  government,  not  very 
different  from  being  a  Persian  traitor.  It  was 
almost  as  difficult  to  be  a  Persian  Christian  under 
Sapor  as  to  be  a  Catholic  under  Elizabeth,  or  an 
Anglican  under  Cromwell. 

I  do  not  intend  to  trace  the  rise  and  decay 
of  Christianity  in  the  Sasanid  Empire.  To-day 
I  must  be  content  with  mentioning  the  fact  of 
the  great  war  and  its  general  bearing  on 
the  theology  of  the  Syriac-speaking  Church, 
before  going  back  to  the  outline  of  the  earlier 
period.  The  names  of  bishops  are  the  dry  bones 
of  Church  History,  and  in  making  up  the  chain 
of  episcopal  successions  we  are  at  best  only 
re-constructing  a  skeleton.  But  the  re-construction 
of  this  skeleton  is  a  necessary  preliminary  to 
enduing  the  dry  bones  with  nerves  and  spirit : 
at  least,  to  drop  the  metaphor,  there  is  no  surer 
way  of  detecting  a  break  in  the  continuity  of 
the  history  of  a  Church  than  by  a  break  in  the 
succession  of  its  chief  ministers.  And  it  is  to 
the  great  break  in  the  succession  of  Edessa  that 
I   must  now  once  more  draw  your  attention. 

What   is    the    real    meaning,   we   ask,   of  the 


26  THE   EARLY   BISHOPS  OF  EDESSA 

statement  that  Palut  was  not  ordained  by  Aggai, 
but  by  Serapion  of  Antioch  ?  The  documents 
that  make  this  statement,  viz.  the  Doctrine  of 
Addai  and  the  Martyrdom  of  Barsamya,  go  on 
to  tell  us  that  Serapion  himself  was  ordained  by 
Zephyrinus  of  Rome,  who  was  ordained  by  his 
predecessor,  and  so  on  up  to  S.  Peter.  The 
general  ecclesiastical  meaning  is,  of  course,  quite 
clear.  It  means  that  Palut  was  an  accredited 
missionary  of  the  great  Church  of  the  Roman 
Empire.1  Palut  was  a  child  of  Peter  :  no  such 
claim  is  made  for  Addai  and  Aggai,  his  prede- 
cessors at  Edessa. 

But  the  form  of  the  statement  we  are  con- 
sidering is  curiously  unhistorical.  Serapion  was 
Bishop  of  Antioch  from  189  or  192  to  209. 
Zephyrinus  was  Bishop  of  Rome  from  202  to  218, 
and  certainly  did  not  consecrate  Serapion.  There 
must  be,  therefore,  a  special  reason  for  the  mention 
of  Zephyrinus,  who  was  a  comparatively  undistin- 
guished occupant  of  S.  Peter's  chair.  I  venture 
to  suggest  that  this  special  reason  is  to  be  found 
in  the  fact  that  Zephyrinus  was  bishop  at  the 
time  when  Abgar  IX  made  his  famous  visit 
to  Rome.     All  the  indications  converge  to  show 

1  In  the  well-known  words  of  S.  Irenaeus  (Haer.  iii  i):  "Ad 
hanc  enim  [sc.  Romanam]  ecclesiam  propter  potiorem  principali- 
tatem  necesse  est  omnem  conuenire  ecclesiam,  hoc  est  eos  qui  sunt 
undique  fideles." 


SERAPION   AND   PALUT  27 

that  the  King  Abgar  who  was  converted  to 
Christianity,  or  at  least  showed  himself  favour- 
able to  the  new  religion,  was  Abgar  IX.  Abgar 
IX.  is  the  only  ruler  of  Edessa  who  would  ever 
have  had  occasion  to  send  an  embassy  to 
Eleutheropolis  in  Palestine,  as  related  in  the 
Doctrine  of  Addai:  he  is  said  to  have  had 
Bardaisan  for  a  friend,  so  that  he  was  exposed 
to  Christian  influence ;  he  was  the  only  one 
of  the  later  kings  of  his  name  who  reigned  long 
enough  for  legends  to  form  about  his  personality. 
We  need  not  strain  our  imaginations  to  invent 
an  interview  between  the  Roman  Pope  and 
the  Asiatic  King,  but  if  Abgar  IX  were  only 
half  a  Christian  it  is  at  least  almost  certain  that 
his  retinue  would  include  members  of  the 
Edessene  Church,  who  would  carry  back  to  the 
East,  on  their  return,  the  name  of  the  chief 
ecclesiastic  in  the  capital  of  the  world.  That 
in  sober  truth  a  church  then  existed  at  Edessa 
we  know  from  the  graphic  description  of  the 
ofreat  flood  of  201  a.d.  which  is  embedded  in  the 
Edessene  Chronicle,  when  amongst  much  other 
damage  the  "Church  of  the  Christians"  was 
destroyed  by  the  river  Daisan. 

It  is,  of  course,  possible  that  the  intercourse 
between  Abgar  and  Septimius  Severus  may  have 
turned  the  attention  of  the  ecclesiastics  of  Rome 


28  THE   EARLY   BISHOPS  OF   EDESSA 

and  Antioch  to  the  Christian  community  of 
Edessa,  but  it  is  more  likely  that  the  impulse 
came  the  other  way,  and  that  Palut's  career 
represents  a  movement  among  Syriac-speak- 
ino-  Christians  for  closer  communion  with  the 
Churches  of  the  West.  We  do  not  know,  and 
our  sources  are  not  likely  to  tell  us,  how  far 
Palut  with  his  Antiochene  Orders  represented 
at  the  time  the  main  stream  of  Edessene 
Christianity.  Yet  it  is  difficult  to  repress  the 
suspicion  that  at  first  the  Catholics,  as  we 
may  call  them,  were  in  the  minority.  We 
learn  from  Jacob  of  Edessa  that  S.  Ephraim, 
in  a  controversial  homily,  now  lost  or  badly 
edited,  complains  that  the  orthodox  are  called 
"  Palutians  "  ;  the  Church,  he  says,  ought  not  to 
be  called  after  any  man's  name,  but  only  after 
Christ  Himself.  S.  Ephraim's  argument,  that 
it  is  the  dissenting  sects  which  are  called  after 
their  founder's  names,  is  historically  accurate,  but 
the  obvious  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the 
name  Palutian  is  that  the  Catholic  Church  in 
Edessa  was  a  dissenting  sect  founded  by  Palut. 
A  somewhat  similar  conclusion  is  perhaps  to 
be  drawn  from  the  list  of  prelates  who  have  filled 
the  office  of  Catholicus  or  Primate  of  the  East, 
the  head  of  the  Church  within  the  Persian 
dominions.     This  list  is  to  be  found  in  the  Book 


CHRONICLE   OF   MICHAEL  THE   SYRIAN  29 

of  the  Bee  compiled  by  Solomon  of  El-Basra,  and 
in  one  or  two  similar  collections  of  historical 
matter.  It  begins  with  Addai.  Then  comes  his 
disciple  Mari ;  but  Ambrose  and  Abraham,  the 
next  in  order,  are  distinguished  in  the  list  as 
being  "of  the  consecration  of  Antioch."  Here, 
again,  Addai  is  claimed  as  the  founder  of  the 
Church,  but  the  link  is  soon  broken,  and  the 
succession  goes  back  to  Antioch. 

One  important  piece  of  evidence  remains  to 
be  considered  before  we  sum  up  our  historical 
results.  The  Chronicle  of  Michael  the  Syrian, 
Patriarch  of  the  Monophysites,  who  died  in  1199, 
is  a  compilation  from  various  sources.  The  value 
of  such  a  work,  when  it  describes  events  which 
happened  a  thousand  years  before  the  writer's 
day,  obviously  depends  on  the  excellence  of  the 
sources  he  used,  and  not  upon  his  own  critical 
judgment.  For  the  main  part  of  his  work  in 
the  first  three  centuries  of  Christianity  he  is 
dependent  on  Eusebius,  but  for  the  history  of 
Edessa  he  has  other  material.  Most  of  it  is 
familiar  to  us  already ;  for  Addai  and  Aggai  he 
uses  the  Doctrine  of  Addai,  for  Barsamya  and 
Sharbel  the  heathen  priest  he  uses  the  Syriac 
Acta.1  Curiously  enough,  he  passes  over 
Habbib,   Shamona  and  Guria,  the  genuine  local 

1  Chabot's  Michel  le  Syrien,  p.  [105]  b. 


30  THE   EARLY  BISHOPS  OF  EDESSA 

heroes  of  Edessa.  But  in  compensation  he  gives 
us  the  fullest  biography  of  Bardaisan  that  has 
survived,  a  biography  which  in  part,  at  least,  must 
have  been  derived  from  a  source  considerably 
older  than  Michael  himself. 

He  tells  us1  that  in  the  year  154  a.d.  Bardaisan 
was  born  at  Edessa,  where  his  parents  had  taken 
refuge  (apparently  from  the  Parthians),  and  that 
he  was  brought  up  at  Hierapolis-Mabbog  by  a 
heathen  priest.  At  the  age  of  twenty-five  years, 
i.e.  in  179  a.d.,  he  went  to  Edessa  on  some 
business,  and  when  passing  by  the  Church  built 
by  Addai  he  heard  the  voice  of  Hystasp  explain- 
ing the  Scriptures  to  the  people.  This  Hystasp 
is  he  that  succeeded  to  Izani 2  as  Bishop  of 
Edessa.  Bardaisan  was  pleased  with  the  dis- 
course, and  desired  to  be  initiated  into  the 
Christian  mysteries ;  and  when  the  bishop  heard 
this  he  taught  him  and  baptized  him  and  made 
him  a  deacon.  Then  follows  some  account  of 
the  astronomical  and  astrological  heresies  of 
Bardaisan,  and  at  the  end  we  are  told  that 
'Aqai,  the  successor  of  Hystasp,  having  failed 
to    convince    Bardaisan    of    his    errors,    finally 

1  Chabot,  p.  [110]  a.  The  MS.  has  475  A.s.  =  i64  A.D.,  by  error. 
The  year  154  is  given  correctly  in  the  much  earlier  and  more 
trustworthy  Chronicum  Edessenum,  and  is  demanded  by  Bardaisan's 
death  in  222  at  the  age  of  sixty-eight. 

a  Or   Yaznai, 


MICHAEL'S   LIST   OF   EDESSENE   BISHOPS  31 

anathematised  him,  and  he  died  in  222  a.d.  at 
the  age  of  sixty-eight.  "  May  his  memory  be 
cursed,  Amen!"  adds  our  chronicler  at  the  end 
of  the  tale. 

We  shall  come  back  to  Bardaisan  in  a 
subsequent  Lecture.  What  we  must  here  notice 
is  that  this  account  supplies  us  with  three  new 
names  of  bishops  of  Edessa,  of  the  succession 
of  Addai.  No  other  source  tells  us  of  Izani,  of 
Hystasp,  or  of  'Aqai,  and  we  have  now  to 
consider  whether  we  are  to  accept  these  names, 
and  if  so,  where  we  are  to  insert  them  in  our 
list.  Perhaps,  however,  the  best  way  is  first  to 
consider  whence  Michael  our  chronicler  himself 
took  the  names. 

This  last  question  resolves  itself  into  an 
inquiry  whether  Michael's  list  of  Edessene 
bishops  has  any  independent  value,  or  whether 
it  be  merely  his  own  compilation  from  the  various 
sources  of  which  he  has  made  use.  For  Michael, 
if  we  may  accept  his  statements,  gives  us  definite 
information.  He  puts  Addai,  Aggai  and  Palut 
in  the  days  of  the  apostles  ;  then  '  Abshelama  ;  then 
Barsamya  in  the  days  of  Trajan ;  then  follow 
Tiridat,  Bozni,  Shalula,  another  slave ;  Guria, 
another  slave  ;  and  then  Izani,  Hystasp  and  'Aqai.1 
What  Michael  means  by  "another  slave"   I  do 

1  Chabot,  p.  [no]  b. 


32  THE   EARLY  BISHOPS  OF   EDESSA 

not  know :  the  whole  list  is  extremely  confused, 
and  no  name  is  given  between  'Aqai,  who  was 
bishop  before  222  a.d.,  and  Qona,  who  was  bishop 
under  Diocletian  in  297.  These  confusions  and 
imperfections  make  it  unlikely  that  our  chronicler 
Michael  composed  the  list  of  Edessene  bishops 
himself ;  but  they  do  not  help  to  commend  the 
list  to  us  as  a  serious  historical  document.  It  is 
noteworthy  that  no  numbers  are  put  before  the 
bishops  in  the  list,  as  in  the  lists  of  bishops  of 
Rome,  Antioch,  Alexandria,  and  Jerusalem,  and 
I  venture  to  think  that  we  may  transpose  the 
three  names  which  have  to  do  with  Bardaisan  to 
a  place  before  Palut. 

The  ordination  of  Palut  by  Serapion  of  Antioch, 
which  is  the  central  fact  of  the  Edessene  succes- 
sion, is  passed  over  altogether  by  Michael.  When 
we  take  account  of  this  fact  we  see  that  the  three 
bishops  who  come  into  the  story  of  Bardaisan 
have  been  inserted  far  too  late.  The  story  itself 
mentions  Addai,  but  Paliit's  name  does  not  occur. 
I  think  we  shall  do  best  to  reject  Michael's  order 
altogether.  We  have  seen  that  there  was  some 
evidence  to  suggest  that  Palut,  with  his 
Antiochene  consecration,  occupied  the  position 
in  Edessa  of  a  dissenter  from  the  main  body  of 
Christians.  The  latest  tradition  makes  him  the 
direct  successor  of  Aggai ;  the  earlier  tradition 


RECONSTRUCTION   OF  THE   HISTORY  33 

makes  him  a  disciple  of  Aggai,  but  consecrated 
bishop  by  Serapion  ;  in  actual  fact  he  may  have 
been  a  rival  to  the  direct  successor  of  Addai  and 
Aggai.  Bishop  Hystasp,who  converted  Bardaisan, 
must  have  been  some  years  senior  to  Palut,  but 
'  Aqai,  who  anathematised  the  great  Astrologer, 
seems  to  have  been  Palut's  contemporary,  or  at 
most  only  a  little  his  senior.  Yet  after  all  our 
sources  know  nothing  of  rival  bishops  in  Edessa 
till  the  time  of  the  Arians,  and  I  should  like  to 
believe  that  the  account  given  at  the  end  of  the 
Doctrine  of  Addai  is  in  essentials  true,  namely, 
that  the  succession  of  the  bishops  of  Edessa  was 
broken  mainly  because  of  heathen  persecution. 

The  early  history  of  the  Edessene  Church  is 
derived  from  sources  for  the  most  part  unfamiliar. 
Much  of  our  material  is  late,  much  of  it  is  mixed 
up  with  unhistorical  legend  and  fable.  To 
give  a  re-construction  of  the  history  without 
setting  the  documents  before  you  would  have 
been  unsatisfactory,  while  a  mere  quotation  of 
the  conflicting  accounts  which  have  come  down 
to  us  would  have  led  to  confusion.  I  have 
therefore  given  you  the  chief  data  from  the 
documents,  with  a  certain  amount  of  accompany- 
ing criticism,  in  order  to  enable  you  to  pass 
judgment  as  to  their  value.     I  shall  now  go  on, 

C 


34  THE   EARLY  BISHOPS   OF   EDESSA 

by  way  of  recapitulation,  to  state  what  I  conceive 
to  have  been  the  main  outlines  of  that  history  to 
which  our  fragmentary  sources  bear  witness. 

The  beginnings,  then,  of  Christianity  in  Edessa 
started  among  the  Jews.  Christianity  was  first 
preached  there  by  Addai,  a  Jew  from  Palestine, 
probably  before  the  middle  of  the  second  century, 
and  the  first  Christian  community  in  Edessa  con- 
tained a  large  Jewish  element.  At  the  same  time 
the  new  religion  came  to  be  favourably  received 
by  some  of  the  noble  and  cultivated  pagan  in- 
habitants, though  it  did  not  become  the  State 
religion  till  after  the  end  of  the  second  century. 
Addai  died  in  peace  at  Edessa,  but  his  successor 
Aggai  was  martyred.  The  Christian  community, 
however,  continued  to  prosper  after  his  decease 
under  Hystasp,  for  I  suspect  that  the  Izani  of 
the  Syriac  Chronicle  may  be  a  miswriting  of 
Aggai.  Be  this  as  it  may,  in  the  time  of 
Hystasp  the  Church  gained  the  adherence  of 
Bardaisan,  a  fact  which  in  itself  shows  the 
growing  attraction  of  Christianity  for  the  heathen 
world.  Bardaisan  was  of  noble  birth,  and  he 
became  a  distinguished  writer :  it  is  a  grave 
count  against  the  Church  in  Edessa  under  'Aqai, 
the  successor  of  Hystasp,  that  it  failed  both  in 
authority  and  attractiveness  to  retain  the  chief 
representative    of    Syriac    philosophy   within    its 


FROM   ADDAI   TO   PALUT  35 

fold.  But  the  old  order  of  things  in  Edessa 
about  200  a.d.,  both  in  Church  and  in  State,  was 
coming  to  an  end :  the  State  came  under  the 
dominion  of  the  Romans,  and  the  Church  was 
renewed  by  a  mission  which  derived  its  authority 
and  its  orders  through  the  Bishop  of  Antioch. 
Palut,  the  new  bishop,  had  been  ordained  by 
Serapion  of  Antioch,  but  though  those  outside 
might  at  first  call  his  followers  Palutians,  as  if 
they  were  a  new  sect,  he  or  his  immediate  suc- 
cessors soon  became  the  undisputed  presidents 
of  the  Catholic  Church  in  Edessa,  and  later  ages 
remembered  Palut  as  the  disciple  of  Aggai  him- 
self. The  followers  of  Bardaisan  remained  with- 
out the  pale  of  the  Church,  and  continued  to  the 
fifth  century.  It  is  not  known  at  what  time  the 
Marcionites  first  established  themselves  in  Edessa. 
They  also  remained  till  the  time  of  Rabbula,  in 
spite  of  the  opposition  both  of  the  Catholics  and 
the  school  of  Bardaisan.  In  Syriac,  as  in  Greek 
Christian  literature,  we  have  to  lament  the  total 
loss  of  the  writings  of  these  profoundly  interesting- 
people. 

After  Palut's  successor  'Abshelama  came 
Barsamya,  another  martyr,  whom  we  may 
suppose  to  have  suffered  either  under  Decius 
or  Valerian  (250-260  a.d.).  About  thirty  years 
later   the    Bishop   of   Edessa   is  called  Qona,   a 


36  THE   EARLY   BISHOPS  OF   EDESSA 

personage  who  lived  to  see  the  end  of  the 
heathen  persecutions  without  the  disgrace  of 
sacrificing  to  idols  or  the  glory  of  a  public  con- 
fession of  the  Faith.  But  during  his  episcopate 
Edessa  furnished  at  least  three  martyrs  to  the 
roll  of  those  who  suffered  under  Diocletian  and 
Licinius,  and  the  memory  of  their  trial  and 
execution  was  still  fresh  when  the  Church 
arrived  at  power  and  could  commemorate  her 
heroes  in  public.  The  story  of  Addai  and  the 
martyrdom  of  Barsamya  are  professedly  taken 
from  the  public  records :  in  other  words,  they 
were  artificially  composed  and  drawn  up  as 
learned  works  of  history,  but  the  author  of 
the  martyrdoms  of  Shamdna  and  Guria,  and  of 
Habbib,  speaks  at  least  partly  from  personal 
knowledge  and  reminiscence.  The  burning  fire, 
the  terrible  sea  and  the  merciless  mines  are  only 
too  vividly  imprinted  in  his  memory.  I  think  it 
not  improbable  that  he  was  one  of  the  guard 
of  soldiers  that  accompanied  Shamona  and  Guria 
outside  Edessa  to  the  place  of  execution,  and  it 
was  their  constancy  which  made  him  from  that 
moment  a  secret  Christian. 

I  need  not  now  continue  the  story  of  the 
Church  in  Edessa  through  the  century  of 
the  Arian  controversy.  We  shall  hear  more  of 
the   theological  disputes  of  the  fourth  and    fifth 


SEMITES   AND   GREEKS  37 

centuries  later  on.  To-day  we  have  been 
occupied  with  scaffolding.  The  names  of 
bishops  and  the  order  of  their  succession  are 
facts  which  only  become  of  importance  to  us 
when  they  are  intimately  bound  up  with  a 
knowledge  of  the  ideas  which  the  men  re- 
present,  and  when  the  order  of  the  names 
suggests  the  development  or  the  conflict  of  the 
ideas. 

The  early  bishops  of  Edessa  must  remain  to 
us  shadowy  personages.  Of  most  of  them  we 
only  know  their  names  ;  and  for  the  rest,  the  words 
that  are  put  into  their  mouths  in  the  Doctrine  of 
Addai  and  the  Acts  of  Barsamya  represent  the 
taste  and  the  beliefs  of  a  later  age.  We  can  do 
little  more  than  repeat  that  the  names  of  Addai 
and  Aggai  represent  the  original  Christianity  of 
Edessa,  a  Christianity  detached  in  spirit  from 
that  of  the  Greek-speaking  Christians  of  the 
Roman  Empire ;  and  that,  on  the  other  hand, 
with  the  name  of  Palut  is  associated  the  ideas  of 
episcopal  succession  and  the  feeling  for  the  unity 
of  the  Church  which  is  symbolised  by  the  primacy 
of  S.  Peter. 

All  through  the  history  of  the  Syriac-speaking 
Church  we  find  this  double  strain.  Sometimes  the 
national,  independent  element  strikes  the  Western 
inquirer ;  in  other  departments  or  other  times  we 


38  THE   EARLY   BISHOPS   OF   EDESSA 

see  more  prominently  the  effort  to  keep  pace  with 
the  Greeks  in  theology,  in  ritual,  in  superstition. 
At  last  there  comes  a  great  disruption.  The 
national  elements  crystallise  into  Nestorianism, 
forming  a  body  hostile  to  Constantinople  within 
the  Persian  dominions.  For  a  time  it  had  a 
wonderful  life,  and  extended  its  missions  to 
Samarkand  and  Tibet,  and  even  to  China  and 
to  Southern  India.  The  elements  more  in 
sympathy  with  later  Greek  theology,  after  driv- 
ing out  their  brethren  from  the  Roman  dominions, 
were  themselves  unable  to  march  for  long  with  the 
inspired  decisions  of  the  Byzantine  Emperors. 
The  Syrians  rejected  the  decrees  of  the 
Council  of  Chalcedon,  and  found  themselves 
also  involved  in  formal  heresy.  When  there- 
fore the  deluge  came,  and  the  barbarian  followers 
of  a  new  prophet  overran  Syria  and  Mesopotamia, 
the  Christian  population  had  little  enthusiasm  for 
the  Greek  dominion.  The  Monophysites  pre- 
ferred toleration  under  Mohammedan  Caliphs  to 
persecution  under  the  Orthodox  rule. 


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in  °o 

IT.  ^ 


LECTURE    II 

THE    BIBLE    IN    SYRIAC 

The  various  translations  of  the  Bible  into  Syriac 

are  of  the  utmost  interest  and  value  to  the  student 

of  Christian  antiquities.     In  the  first  place,   the 

earlier    Syriac   Versions  are  of  great   weight  as 

critical  "authorities,"  as  documents  by  the  aid  of 

which  modern  scholars  are  enabled  to  re-construct 

the  text  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  in  the 

original  languages  where  the  transmitted  text  is 

faulty,  or  to  defend  it  where  the  transmitted  text 

is  sound.       In    the    four    Gospels    especially   the 

earliest     Syriac     version    is    one    of    our     best 

authorities.     But  the  various  forms  of  the  Bible 

in  Syriac  have  a  historical  interest  of  their  own 

apart   from    their  critical    value.     They  form   as 

it    were    a   commentary    upon    the    history    and 

development    of    the    Syriac  -  speaking    Church. 

The    history    of  the    Church    will    help    us    to 

understand  and  appreciate   the  character  of  the 

Biblical     translations,     and     where     the     direct 

historical    information  is  scanty  the  character  of 


40  THE   BIBLE   IN    SYRIAC 

the    Biblical    translations    will,    to    some   extent, 
enable  us  to  re-construct  and  illustrate  the  history. 

The  same  thing,  let  us  remind  ourselves  in 
passing,  may  be  done  with  English  Church 
History.  We  can  very  well  illustrate  the  course 
of  the  English  Reformation  from  the  history  of 
the  English  Bible.  In  Tyndale  we  have  the 
Protestant  reformer  translating  for  the  first  time 
the  Scriptures  from  the  original  languages  into 
the  vernacular,  and  in  his  work  we  catch  the 
unmistakeable  echoes  of  current  controversies 
when  we  find  the  "church"  appearing  as  the 
"congregation,"  and  priests  as  "seniors." 
The  various  more  or  less  official  versions, 
culminating  in  the  Authorised  Version  of  1611, 
mark  the  peculiar  progress  of  Reformation 
principles  in  England  :  the  irresponsible 
Protestant  version  of  Tyndale  was  burnt  by 
authority,  but  it  was  nevertheless  used  as 
the  basis  of  subsequent  Bibles  in  which  the 
ecclesiastical  vocabulary  had  been  more  or  less 
restored. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  work  out  the  parallel  in 
detail.  The  impression  I  wish  to  leave  on  your 
minds  is  that  for  studying  the  history  of  the 
earliest  Syriac-speaking  Church  we  are  in  much 
the  same  position  as  if  we  had  to  re- construct 
the  course  of  the  Reformation  in  England  from 


THE   PESHITTA  41 

a  series  of  English  Bibles,  together  with  a  few 
tales  taken  out  of  Foxe's  Book  of  Martyrs.  We 
need  to  use  both  courage  and  caution  if  our 
results  are  to  be  of  value. 

The   place  that    is    occupied   among    English- 
speaking  Christians  by  the    Authorised    Version 
is    occupied    in    the    Syriac    Churches    by    the 
Peshitta.     What  is  known  to  us  as  the  Peshitta 
is  a  Syriac  version  of  the  Canonical  Scriptures 
of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  as  received  by 
the    Syriac-speaking   Church.     The    Peshitta    is 
the  only  version  in  ecclesiastical  use.     It  is  the 
Bible  equally  of  the   Nestorians,   the    Jacobites, 
the  Malkites,  the  Maronites,  and  that  it  occupies 
this  position  is  in  itself  proof  sufficient  that  it  is 
older  than  the  latter  half  of  the  fifth  century,  the 
period  when  the  Syriac-speaking  Church  began 
to  split  up  into  exclusive  and  hostile  communities. 
The    name    Peshitta    is    not  so  old.     The   word 
p'shitta    means    "simple,"    and    was    originally 
applied   to   the   current  Syriac  version   at   some 
period  between  the  seventh  and  the  ninth  century 
to  distinguish  it  from  a  revised  version  prepared 
by  the  Monophysite  scholars,  Thomas  of  Heraclea 
and   Paul  of  Telia.     This    revised    version   was 
written  in  a  pedantic  semi-Greek  jargon,  and  was 
provided  with  a  complicated  apparatus  of  critical 
signs  embodied  in  the  text :  compared  with  this 


42  THE   BIBLE   IN    SYRIAC 

learned  work  the  older  translation  appeared  to 
the  Syrians  to  be  "simple."  But  the  name 
Peshitta  to  denote  the  Syriac  Vulgate  is  so  con- 
venient and  distinctive  a  term  that  we  shall  do 
well  to  retain  it. 

The  first  point  about  the  Peshitta  to  which  I 
wish  to  draw  your  attention  is  the  fixed  character 
of  its  text.  The  range  of  variation  found  in  the 
extant  MSS.  is  very  small,  considerably  smaller 
even  than  the  range  of  variation  in  the  MSS. 
of  the  Latin  Vulgate.  The  variations  them- 
selves are  for  the  most  part  of  the  most  trifling 
description,  matters  of  orthography,  slips  of 
writing,  and  such  like.  This  is  all  the  more 
noteworthy,  seeing  that  our  Peshitta  MSS.  date 
from  the  fifth  century  onwards.  The  whole  Bible 
— Old  and  New  Testaments,  with  the  Apocrypha 
— is  extant  in  Syriac  MSS.  of  the  sixth  century, 
a  state  of  things  which  cannot  be  paralleled  in 
any  other  language  but  Greek,  and  our  Greek 
MSS.  of  that  age  are  full  of  startling  variation 
from  later  copies. 

At  once  some  interesting  problems  suggest 
themselves.  We  have  in  the  Peshitta  a  monu- 
ment of  ecclesiastical  authority  ;  what  is  its  value  ? 
What  does  it  tell  us  of  the  history  of  the  Bible 
in  the  Church  ?  What  books  were  included  in 
the   early    Syriac    Canon  ?     And   what   was    the 


THE   ARAMAIC   OF    EDESSA  43 

state  of  the  text  in  those  MSS.  from  which  the 
translation  was  made  ? 

When  the  New  Testament  in  the  Peshitta 
version  was  first  published  in  the  year  1555,  the 
editor,  Chancellor  John  Albert  Widmanstatter, 
claimed  that  the  Syriac  of  the  Peshitta  was  the 
language  of  Palestine,  the  vernacular  dialect  used 
by  our  Lord  and  His  apostles.  This  is  not  the 
case  ;  the  Syriac  of  the  Peshitta  is  akin  to  the 
Aramaic  of  Palestine,  but  it  is  very  far  from 
being  the  same  dialect.  Syriac  is  the  name 
gfiven  to  the  dialect  of  Aramaic  which  was 
spoken  in  the  Euphrates  Valley  and  the  ad- 
joining districts.  The  dialects  formerly  spoken 
in  Palestine  and  in  its  neighbourhood  as  far 
north  as  Palmyra  were  also  dialects  of  Aramaic, 
but  distinct  from  Syriac.  These  Western 
Aramaic  dialects  differ  from  Syriac  in  the  use 
of  what  may  be  called  the  article,  in  the  con- 
jugation and  formation  of  the  verb,  and  in 
vocabulary.  The  "  Aramaic  of  Palestine "  is 
known  to  us  from  the  Aramaic  portions  of  the 
Old  Testament,  from  the  Targums  and  other 
Jewish  literature,  from  the  Samaritan  Liturgies 
and  Targum,  from  Nabatsean  and  Palmyrene 
inscriptions  ;  and  it  is  not  the  language  of  the 
Peshitta. 

It     is     necessary    to     insist     on     this     point, 


44  THE   BIBLE   IN    SYRIAC 

because  erroneous  views  about  the  connexion  of 
Syriac-speaking  Christianity  with  the  primitive 
Christianity  of  Palestine  were  formerly  current, 
and  even  now  are  not  wholly  eradicated. 
Nothing,  for  instance,  can  be  more  misleading 
than  the  account  of  the  Peshitta  given  in  the 
late  Dr  Westcott's  well-known  book  on  the 
Canon  of  the  New  Testament.  It  is  true  that 
this  work  was  first  published  so  long  ago  as 
1855,  but  in  the  7th  edition,  issued  in  1896,  and 
brought  up  to  date  by  a  distinguished  scholar, 
we  still  read  "  The  dialect  of  the  Peshitta,  even 
as  it  stands  now,  represents  in  part  at  least 
that  form  of  Aramaic  which  was  current  in 
Palestine,"1  and  "The  Peshitta  is  the  earliest 
monument  of  Catholic  Christianity."2  It  is  true 
that  Dr  Westcott  clearly  recognised  that  the 
text  of  the  New  Testament  Peshitta  had  under- 
gone "a  decisive  revision  in  the  fourth  century." : 
But  stress  is  laid  on  the  assumed  Palestinian 
origin  of  the  Peshitta,  and  the  present  Canon  of 
the  Peshitta  is  distinctly  asserted  to  be  that  of 
the  earliest  times.  Neither  of  these  assertions 
are  tenable  in  the  light  of  the  evidence  we  now 
possess. 


1  Ed.  of  1896,  p.  241. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  250,  side  note. 
s  Ibid.,  p.  242,  note. 


ANTIOCH   A   GREEK   CITY  45 

It  may  be  as  well,  before  we  go  any  further, 
once  more  to  remind  ourselves  that  Antioch  "  in 
Syria"  was  a  centre,  not  of  Syriac- speaking 
culture,  but  of  Greek  culture.  After  Christianity 
became  the  established  religion  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  monasteries  of  Syriac -speaking  com- 
munities were  established  within  or  near  the 
walls  of  Antioch,  but  it  was  essentially  a  Greek 
city.  The  condition  of  things  in  the  Roman 
Province  of  Syria  and  the  regions  beyond  was 
not  very  much  unlike  that  with  which  we  have 
become  familiar  in  South  Africa.  Just  as  in 
South  Africa  the  great  towns  are  predominantly 
English,  while  nearly  the  whole  country-side  is 
Dutch  in  language  and  civilisation,  both  within 
and  without  the  old  political  boundaries,  so  in 
Western  Asia  only  the  great  cities  were  Greek, 
while  the  villages  were  peopled  by  Aramaic- 
speaking  races.  The  importance  of  the  establish- 
ment of  Christianity  in  Edessa,  which  formed 
the  subject  of  last  Lecture,  lies  in  this,  that  it 
was  a  Syriac-speaking  city.  Until  a  Syriac- 
speaking  Christianity  was  planted  in  Edessa, 
the  influence  of  the  Church  in  Syria  did  not 
penetrate  much  beyond  the  Greek-speaking  towns 
on  the  Mediterranean  coast. 

To   come   back   to   the   history   of   the    Bible 
in  Syriac,   I  have  already  drawn   your  attention 


46  THE   BIBLE   IN    SYRIAC 

to  the  remarkable  fact  that  our  many  ancient 
MSS.  of  the  Peshitta  all  present  practically  the 
same  text.  Mr  Gwilliam  has  lately  edited  the 
Gospels  in  the  Peshitta  version.  He  has  collated 
over  forty  MSS.,  some  of  them  as  old  as  the 
latter  half  of  the  fifth  century,  and  yet  the 
variations  are  practically  confined  to  questions 
of  spelling.  The  text  approved  by  ecclesiastical 
authority  was  therefore  very  carefully  preserved 
in  later  times ;  is  it,  we  ask,  the  original  text  ? 

It  is  all  the  more  necessary  to  ask  this  question, 
because  the  magnificent  series  of  Peshitta  MSS. 
do  not  entirely  occupy  the  field.  In  1858  Dr 
Cureton,  then  Keeper  of  the  Oriental  MSS.  in 
the  British  Museum,  published  some  fragments 
of  another  Syriac  translation  of  the  Gospels 
from  a  MS.  at  least  as  ancient  as  any  of  the 
MSS.  of  the  Peshitta.  This  translation  was 
long  called  the  "  Curetonian  Syriac,"  after  the 
name  of  its  discoverer  and  editor.  It  was 
evidently  akin  to  the  Peshitta,  though  differing 
in  many  important  particulars,  and  the  question 
arose  which  of  the  two  more  nearly  represented 
the  original  Syriac  translation.  Cureton's  MS. 
was  very  defective,  but  in  1893  another  MS. 
of  the  same  Syriac  translation  was  discovered 
in  the  Convent  of  S.  Catherine  on  Mount 
Sinai.      This  MS.  is  a  palimpsest,  i.e.  the  writing 


THE   DIATESSARON  47 

had  been  more  or  less  washed  out  and  another 
book  written  on  the  vellum,  but  the  original 
can  still  in  great  part  be  made  out.  The  Sinai 
Palimpsest  is  a  very  ancient  MS.,  older  even 
than  Cureton's  MS.,  and  it  diners  a  good  deal 
from  it  both  in  language  and  in  the  readings 
of  the  Greek  which  it  supports.  But  the  two 
MSS.  often  agree  in  the  most  striking  way 
ao-ainst  the  Peshitta.  Both  MSS.  describe  them- 
selves  as  being  the  Evangelion  da-Mepharresh£, 
a  title  which  will  be  discussed  below. 

During  the  last  half  century  the  controversy 
between  the  rival  claims  of  the  "  Curetonian " 
and  the  Peshitta  has  gone  on.  Meanwhile 
evidence  has  been  accumulating  that  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other  was  the  form  in  which  the 
Gospel  was  most  read  in  early  times  among 
Syriac-speaking  Christians.  In  original  Syriac 
works  earlier  than  the  fifth  century,  as  distinct 
from  translations,  the  separate  Gospels  are  never 
quoted  by  name,  and  the  text  of  the  quotations 
is  generally  composed  of  phrases  taken  from 
various  Gospels.  The  reason  of  this  is  that 
the  early  Syriac-speaking  Church  used  not  our 
Four  Gospels,  but  Tatian's  Diatessaron.  This 
Diatessaron  was  a  harmony  of  our  Four  Gospels, 
made  into  one  narrative  by  combining,  rather 
than  by  selecting,  the  words  of  Matthew,  Mark, 


48  THE   BIBLE    IN    SYRIAC 

Luke  and  John.  Unfortunately  it  fell  under 
ecclesiastical  censure,  and  no  MS.  of  it  in  its 
original  form  has  survived. 

No  Syriac  MS.  of  the  Acts  or  Epistles  has 
yet  come  to  light  which  can  be  supposed  to 
preserve  an  earlier  form  of  the  version  than 
the  official  Peshitta.  There  are,  indeed,  indica- 
tions that  such  an  earlier  form  did  once  exist, 
but  its  representatives  appear  to  have  all  perished. 
Our  knowledge  of  the  earliest  Syriac  New  Testa- 
ment outside  the  Gospels  has  to  be  gathered 
mainly  from  the  quotations  of  Aphraates  and  the 
Commentary  of  S.  Ephraim  on  the  Pauline 
Epistles.  This  Commentary  is  only  extant 
in  an  Armenian  translation. 

The  time  will  doubtless  come  when  we  shall 
be  able  to  write  the  history  of  the  Bible  in 
Syriac  as  a  continuous  narrative  arranged  in 
chronological  order.  But  there  are  still  great 
gaps  in  our  knowledge,  and  we  must  start 
from  some  fixed  point  where  we  have  clear 
and  trustworthy  evidence  about  the  texts  current 
in  the  Syriac-speaking  Church.  There  can  be, 
I  venture  to  think,  very  little  doubt  as  to  what 
that  starting-point  ought  to  be.  Our  oldest 
MSS.  of  the  Peshitta  date  from  about  the 
middle  of  the  fifth  century,  and  the  earliest 
piece    of    contemporary     biography     which     we 


RABBULA  49 

possess  is  the  life  of  Rabbula.  Let  us  therefore 
start  from  the  episcopate  of  Rabbula,  Bishop 
of  Edessa  from  411  to  435  a.d.  We  shall  see 
presently  that  this  period  has  special  claims  to 
be  regarded  as  a  critical  point  in  the  history 
of  the  Syriac  Bible.  In  other  matters  also  it 
forms  a  parting  of  the  ways.  It  is  the  last 
moment  when  the  Church  in  the  East  was 
nominally  united.  The  Arians  and  the  older 
heretics  had  been  routed,  while  Nestorius  was 
not  yet  condemned. 

From  411  to  435,  then,  Rabbula  was  Bishop 
of  Edessa.  This  great  ecclesiastic  has  not  yet 
received  from  modern  scholars  the  recognition 
which  is  his  due.  He  was  a  native  of  Qinnesrin 
("Eagles'  Nest"),  a  town  perhaps  better  known 
to  us  as  Chalcis  in  Syria ;  his  father  was  a 
heathen  priest  who  had  sacrificed  in  the  presence 
of  Julian  the  Apostate,  but  his  mother  was  a 
Christian.  He  was  converted  to  Christianity 
by  Eusebius,  Bishop  of  Qinnesrin,  and  Acacius, 
Bishop  of  Aleppo.  After  his  conversion,  Rabbula 
went  to  Jerusalem  and  was  baptized  in  the  Jordan 
where  Jesus  had  been  baptized  by  John,  and  the 
story  runs  that,  as  the  future  bishop  came  up  from 
the  water,  men  saw  the  white  sheet  that  covered 
him  flash  blood-red.  On  returning  to  his  native 
place    Rabbula   distributed    his   property   to    the 

D 


50  THE    BIBLE   IN    SVRIAC 

poor,  freed  his  slaves,  forsook  his  wife,  and  en- 
trusted his  little  sons  and  daughters  to  convent 
schools.  He  himself  went  from  austerity  to 
austerity,  living  for  a  time  as  a  hermit  in  the 
desert  in  the  hope  of  being  killed  by  the  wild 
Arabs,  and  then  going  with  his  friend  Eusebius 
to  Baalbek  in  order  to  obtain  the  crown  of 
martyrdom  by  raising  a  disturbance  in  the  great 
Temple — somewhat  after  the  fashion  of  the  late 
Mr  Kensit.1  But  the  crown  of  martyrdom  was 
not  destined  for  Rabbula,  and  the  two  enthusiasts 
only  succeeded  in  getting  themselves  thrown 
down  the  temple  steps. 

These  exploits  hardly  appeal  to  us,  but  they 
recommended  Rabbula  in  the  eyes  of  his  con- 
temporaries, and  soon  afterwards  he  was  ap- 
pointed Bishop  of  Edessa,  a  post  which  he  filled 
for  twenty-four  years  till  his  death  in  435.  He 
was  evidently  a  most  successful  ruler  and 
organiser,  a  strict  disciplinarian  while  running 
with  the  stream  in  the  matter  of  doctrine.  At 
first  he  seems  to  have  sided  with  the  Nestorians, 
but  in  the  end  he  joined  the  opposite  party  and 
became  the  friend  and  correspondent  of  Cyril 
of  Alexandria,  whose  views  he  supported  at  the 


1  Overbeck,  Exploits  of  Mar  Rabbfila,  p.  196,  last  line.  I  believe 
his  to  be  the  earliest  surviving  mention  of  Baalbek  by  name  ;  cf. 
Bury's  Gibbon,  v  431. 


RABBULA  51 

council  of  Edessa  in  431.  He  even  burned  the 
writings  of  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  and  earned 
from  Nestorians  the  name  of  "the  tyrant  of 
Edessa." 

Other  things  occupied  Rabbula's  attention 
besides  questions  of  religious  philosophy.  He 
was  generous  to  the  poor,  kind  to  the  sick, 
unremitting  in  personal  austerity.  But  his 
importance  to  us  is  that  he  stands  as  the  great 
enforcer  of  ecclesiastical  order.  He  regulated 
the  ritual  of  divine  service,  the  discipline  of  the 
professed  celibates,  the  customs  observed  by  the 
monastic  communities.  And  though  he  occupied 
an  ambiguous  position  with  regard  to  those 
doctrines  about  which  the  Church  had  not 
already  pronounced  a  decision,  he  was  unceasing 
in  the  fight  against  heretics  and  heathen.  He 
attacked  the  Marcionites  and  the  Manichees 
with  some  success,  and  actually  persuaded  the 
remnant  of  the  Bardesanians  to  come  into  the 
orthodox  fold. 

Shortly  after  Rabbula's  death  in  435  his 
exploits  were  chronicled  by  an  enthusiastic 
disciple.  A  MS.  of  this  work  survives  in  the 
British  Museum,  which  has  been  edited  in 
Overbeck's  well  -  known  collection  of  ancient 
Syriac  writings,  pp.  159-210.  In  the  course  of 
his  narrative   Rabbula's  biographer  has  occasion 


52  THE    BIBLE   IN    SYRIAC 

to  quote  the  New  Testament  several  times,  and 
each  time  the  quotations  are  in  marked  accord 
with  the  text  of  the  Peshitta.  I  need  here  only 
call  attention  to  the  phrase  lahmd  tisunqarihon 
"bread  of  their  need"  (Overbeck  i6%2)>1  fr°m 
which  it  is  evident  that  the  text  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer  familiar  to  the  writer  agreed  with  the 
Peshitta,  which  has  "bread  of  our  need,"  and 
not  with  the  old  Syriac  version,  which  has 
"  constant   bread "   as   its    rendering   of  rhv  dprov 

'i)fxwv  tuv  Ittlovviov. 

Thus  at  the  time  of  Rabbula's  death,  in  the 
circle  especially  attached  to  his  memory  and  his 
policy,  we  find  the  New  Testament  Peshitta 
fully  established.  From  that  time  onwards  the 
Peshitta  has  remained  in  continuous  possession. 
The  Peshitta  is  quoted  by  Syriac  writers  of  every 
class,  and  used  liturgically  by  every  Syriac-speak- 
ing  sect.  The  Monophysites,  indeed,  were  not 
entirely  satisfied,  and  Thomas  of  Heraclea,  a 
Monophysite  scholar,  prepared  a  pedantically 
literal  revised  version,  which  was  regarded  as  a 
critical  authority  and  here  and  there  actually 
brought   into   liturgical    use.      But   even   among 


1  The  sentence  runs  "  Grace  sent  them  {i.e.  Rabbula  and  his 
companions)  at  sunset  the  bread  of  their  need."  Another  clear 
instance  of  the  biographer's  use  of  the  Peshitta  is  to  be  found  in 
his  quotation  of  Joh.  i  14  {Overbeck  K)72o)- 


BIBLICAL   QUOTATIONS   IN    SYRIAC   WRITERS        53 

Monophysites  the  Peshitta  was  never  really 
supplanted,  and  the  Nestorians  were  unswerving 
in  their  attachment  to  it.  Besides  all  this,  we 
have,  as  I  have  already  told  you,  the  testimony 
of  a  series  of  extant  Peshitta  MSS.  dating  from 
the  latter  half  of  the  fifth  century  till  after  the  in- 
vention of  printing.  All  these  present  essentially 
the  same  type  of  text. 

There  are  very  few  instances  known  to  me 
where  quotations  from  the  Gospel  in  original 
Syriac  writings  later  than  430  a.d.  are  based 
on  versions  older  than  the  Peshitta.  One  of 
these  is  the  pair  of  Gospel  allusions  in  the 
romance  of  Julian  the  Apostate ;  in  the  light 
of  other  evidence  it  is  probable  that  the  trifling 
differences  from  the  Peshitta  found  in  these 
allusions  are  due  to  a  reminiscence  of  the 
Diatessaron  rather  than  to  chance  variation  or 
a  slip  of  memory.  The  other  is  in  Jacob  of 
Serug's  still  unpublished  homily  on  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  in  which  he  renders  the  petition  about 
daily  bread  by  "And  give  us  the  constant 
bread  of  the  day "  in  accordance  with  the  old 
Syriac  rendering,  and  (I  may  add),  that  familiar 
to  S.  Ephraim.1  It  is,  of  course,  in  the  text 
of  the  Lord's  Prayer  that  we  may  expect  to 
find   the   last   traces  of  older  versions :    in   this 

1  See  Lamy  iii  53. 


54  THE   BIBLE   IN   SYRIAC 

very  passage  the  Roman  Church  has  retained 
the  pattern  cotidianum  of  the  Old  Latin  in  her 
liturgy,  although  the  Vulgate  text  of  Matt,  vi  1 1 
has  pattern  supersubstantialem. 

When  we  work  backwards  from  the  episcopate 
of  Rabbula  we  find  a  wholly  different  state  of 
things.  The  direct  evidence  of  MSS.  here  fails 
us,  for  it  is  doubtful  whether  any  surviving 
Biblical  MS.  can  be  placed  in  the  fourth  century. 
I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  Sinai  Palimpsest 
MS.  of  the  Gospels  is  as  old  as  the  fourth  century, 
but  the  MS.  is  not  dated,  and  the  evidence 
therefore  is  wholly  palseographical  and  so  open 
to  some  doubt.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a 
considerable  body  of  patristic  evidence  in  Syriac 
older  than  400  a.d.  We  have  the  Acts  of  Judas 
Thomas,  the  Doctrine  of  Addai,  the  Edessene 
Canons  published  by  Cureton,  the  Homilies  of 
Aphraates,  the  Homilies  of  Cyrillona,  and  last 
but  by  no  means  least,  the  genuine  works  of 
S.  Ephraim.  All  these  make  up  a  very  consider- 
able body  of  writing,  and  many  quotations  from 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments  are  found  in 
them.  But  while  the  quotations  from  the  Old 
Testament  agree  very  largely  with  the  text  of 
the  Peshitta  Old  Testament,  the  quotations  from 
the  New  Testament  do  not  agree  with  the  text 
of  the  Peshitta  New  Testament. 


QUOTATIONS   OF  S.   EPHRAIM  55 

Nor    is    this    difference    the    result    of    mere 
carelessness   of  quotation,   for   a   great   majority 
of  the  quotations  present   marked  resemblances 
to    the   texts   of  Cureton's    MS.    and   the   Sinai 
Palimpsest,    the    two    surviving    MSS.    of    the 
Evangelion   da  -  Mepharreshe,    and    also    to    the 
extant   fragments   of  the    Diatessaron.      I    need 
hardly    trouble    you    here    with    examples  :    the 
fact  is  patent  to  any  one  who  will  compare  the 
quotations  for  themselves,  and  would  have  long 
ago   been    unquestioned    if   the    evidence   of   S. 
Ephraim    had    not    been    misrepresented.       Let 
me  hasten  to  add  that  there   is   no  question  of 
denying  the   authenticity   of  works   assigned   to 
an    ancient    Father    merely    on    some    a  priori 
ground.      The   works  of   S.    Ephraim   are   very 
well  preserved  in  ancient  MSS.  in  London  and 
Rome.     Above  400  metrical  hymns  and  homilies, 
and  some  250  pages  of  prose,  survive  in  volumes 
older    than     the     time     of    the     Mohammedan 
invasions  in  the  seventh  century.     All  these  may 
be  accepted  without  question  as  genuine,  and  it 
is   surely  enough  for   determining  the   character 
of  the  Biblical  text  that  S.  Ephraim  used.     But 
the  Roman  edition    of  S.  Ephraim,  which  dates 
from  the  middle  of  the    eighteenth  century,  in- 
cluded a  quantity  of  pieces  taken  from  late  MSS. 
and     catena,    many    of    which    are     clearly   the 


56  THE   BIBLE   IN   SYRIAC 

work  of  authors  who  lived  generations  after 
S.  Ephraim's  day.  Indeed,  some  of  them  are 
expressly  assigned  to  other  Syriac  writers  in 
older  MSS.  These  later  writings,  when  they 
contain  quotations  from  Scripture,  use  not  the 
text  S.  Ephraim  used  but  the  current  version, 
and  thus  it  appeared  that  S.  Ephraim  himself 
quoted  from  the  Peshitta.  Now,  when  the 
spurious  pieces  are  taken  away  from  S.  Ephraim 
and  assigned  to  their  rightful  owners,  no  instance 
remains  where  S.  Ephraim  is  clearly  using  the 
Peshitta,  while  on  the  other  hand  there  are 
many  points  of  agreement  in  his  quotations 
with  the  Evangelion  da-MepharresM  and  with 
the  Diatessaron.  This  is  indeed  what  might 
have  been  expected,  for  S.  Ephraim  wrote  a 
Commentary  on  the  Diatessaron,  but  there  is 
no  evidence  to  suggest  that  he  ever  made  a 
Commentary  on  the  Four  Gospels. 

To  come  back  to  Rabbula.  Before  the 
episcopate  of  Rabbula  the  quotations  of  Syriac 
writers  do  not  agree  with  the  Peshitta  New 
Testament,  and  they  do  very  largely  agree 
with  the  Diatessaron  and  the  surviving  MSS. 
of  the  Evangelion  da-Mepharreshe ;  after  the 
episcopate  of  Rabbula  they  agree  with  the 
Peshitta,  and  do  not  agree  with  the  Diatessaron 
and     the     Evangelion     da  -  Mepharreshc.       The 


RABBULA   AND   THE   DIATESSARON  57 

inference  is  obvious  that  Rabbula  had  himself 
a  chief  share  in  the  publication  of  the  Peshitta. 
This  inference  becomes  to  my  mind  something 
very  like  a  certainty  when  we  read  that  at  the 
beginning  of  his  episcopate  "he  translated  by 
the  wisdom  of  God  that  was  in  him  the  New 
Testament  from  Greek  into  Syriac,  because  of 
its  variations,  exactly  as  it  was"  (Overbeck  172). 
As  we  have  seen,  he  was  just  the  man  to  favour 
such  a  revision,  and  just  the  man  to  carry  it 
through  successfully.  His  feeling  for  ecclesi- 
astical uniformity  would  be  shocked  by  variations 
between  codex  and  codex,  and  by  the  marked 
way  that  such  codices  as  Cureton's  or  the  Sinai 
Palimpsest  differed  from  the  Greek  text  as  he, 
Rabbula,  knew  it.  But  above  all,  the  use  of 
the  Diatessaron  would  be  intolerable  to  one  who 
desired  to  assimilate  the  system  of  the  Syriac- 
speaking  Church  to  the  universal  order.  The 
Diatessaron  was  the  work  of  a  heretic ;  it  had 
nothing-  but  custom  to  recommend  it,  and  else- 
where  than  among  Syriac-speaking  Christians 
there  was  no  such  custom  in  the  churches  of 
God.  And  who  could  carry  through  the  reform 
so  well  as  Rabbdla?  He  had  no  official  rivals, 
no  organised  opposition  to  deal  with  ;  the 
Bardesanians,  who  of  all  folk  most  represented 
native   Syriac   Christianity,   were    actually  being 


58  THE   BIBLE   IN    SYRIAC 

absorbed  into    the    main    body  under  Rabbula's 
influence. 

For  these  reasons,  therefore,  I  identify  the 
"translation"  spoken  of  by  Rabbula's  biographer 
with  the  Peshitta  itself.  I  regard  it  as  a  re- 
vision prepared  by  him  or  under  his  immediate 
direction,  and  I  understand  the  use  of  it  to  have 
been  enforced  by  him  during  his  tenure  of  the 
See  of  Edessa. 

We  must  now  consider  some  objections  to  this 
theory,  objections  not  I  think  irremovable,  but 
which  certainly  require  to  be  put  out  of  the  way 
before  the  theory  can  be  firmly  established.  In 
the  first  place,  I  can  imagine  that  the  incomplete- 
ness of  the  Peshitta  canon  might  be  used  as  an 
argument  against  dating  the  version  so  late  as 
the  time  of  Rabbula.  As  is  well  known,  the 
Apocalypse  and  the  four  shorter  Catholic  Epistles 
are  not  included.  But  these  are  the  very  books 
that  are  passed  over  in  the  quotations  of 
S.  Chrysostom  and  Theodoret.  Moreover,  the 
canon  of  the  Peshitta,  which  includes  James, 
i  Peter  and  I  John,  is  really  a  nearer  approxi- 
mation to  the  full  Greek  canon  than  anything 
that  can  be  traced  earlier  in  Syriac.  Neither 
in  Aphraates  nor  in  the  genuine  works  of 
S.   Ephraim  is   there  a  single  clear  reference  to 


THE   CANON    OF   THE   PESHITTA  59 

any  of  the  Catholic  Epistles,  and  the  Doctrine  of 
Addai  says  expressly  :  "  The  Law  and  the 
Prophets  and  the  Gospel  .  .  .  and  the  Epistles 
of  Paul  .  .  .  and  the  Acts  of  the  Twelve 
Apostles  .  .  .  These  books  read  ye  in  the 
Church  of  God,  and  with  these  read  not  others." 
This  is  the  ancient  canon  of  the  Syriac-speaking 
Church.  The  canon  of  the  Peshitta,  so  far  from 
being,  in  the  late  Bishop  Westcott's  unfortunate 
phrase,  "the  earliest  monument  of  Catholic 
Christianity,"  is  only  a  half-way  stage,  which 
represents  the  custom  of  Antioch  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  fifth  century,  both  by  what  it  includes 
and  by  what  it  leaves  out. 

Another  objection  to  regarding  the  Peshitta 
as  the  work  of  Rabbula  is  the  acceptance  of  it 
by  the  Nestorians.  How  should  the  Nestorians 
accept  a  revision  set  forth  by  the  "tyrant  of 
Edessa  "  ?  This  would,  indeed,  be  a  grave  diffi- 
culty if  in  the  time  of  Rabbula  the  Nestorians 
had  been,  what  they  afterwards  became,  a  definite 
sect  of  Syriac-speaking  Christians.  But  at  the 
epoch  we  are  now  considering,  the  Greek 
Nestorians  were  as  prominent  as  those  who 
spoke  Syriac,  and  it  was  not  till  449,  fifteen 
years  after  the  death  of  Rabbula,  that  Nestorian 
doctrines  were  formally  condemned.  The  pro- 
Nestorian    school,   as    much  as  their  opponents, 


60  THE   BIBLE   IN    SYRIAC 

derived  their  doctrine  from  Greek  theologians, 
and  would  be  as  anxious  as  any  other  party  to 
possess  a  translation  of  the  Bible  which  agreed 
with  the  Greek.  As  a  matter  of  fact  very  few 
"various  readings"  favour  Nestorianism  against 
its  opponents,  or  vice  versa ;  the  chief  exception 
is  Hebrews  ii  9,  and  in  that  verse  the  variation 
between  xwP^  &€°v  and  x^PLTi  ^€0^  ^s  actually  re- 
flected in  the  MSS.  of  the  Peshitta.  MSS. 
of  Nestorian  origin  support  x^P^  ^€<™  m  agree- 
ment with  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  while 
Jacobite  MSS.  have  "  God  in  His  grace,"  a 
strange     rendering     which     possibly     represents 

As  regards  the  most  striking  feature  of  differ- 
ence between  the  Peshitta  and  the  ancient 
custom  of  Syriac-speaking  Christians,  the  heads 
of  the  Nestorian  party  were  at  one  with  Rabbula 
in  their  anxiety  to  substitute  the  Four  Gospels 
for  the  Diatessaron.  Rabbula  ordered  that  in 
every  Church  there  should  be  a  copy  of  the 
separated  Gospels,  and  that  it  should  be  read, 
while  Theodoret,  the  partisan  of  Nestorius,  tells 
us  how  he  himself  withdrew  over  200  copies  of 
the  Diatessaron  from  circulation  in  his  diocese, 
and  substituted  in  their  place  the  Gospels  of  the 
four  Evangelists.  Indeed  Rabbula's  change  of 
front  with  regard  to  the  doctrine  of  our  Lord's 


NESTORIANS   AND   MONOPIIYSITES  6l 

Nature  may  have  helped  to  spread  the  version 
that  he  recommended,  for  if  the  Nestorian  party 
had  been  persuaded  to  give  up  the  Diatessaron 
before  Rabbula  went  over  to  their  adversaries, 
they  would  not  return  to  its  use  after  he  left 
them.  A  body  of  Christians  in  the  fifth  century 
who  had  given  up  the  Diatessaron  in  favour  of 
the  Four  Gospels  would  hardly  revert  to  their 
heretical  Harmony.  Meanwhile,  Rabbula's  defec- 
tion to  the  anti- Nestorian  party  (as  we  may  call 
the  Orthodox  and  the  future  Monophysites) 
must  have  helped  to  recommend  his  Biblical 
policy  to  these  also.  Clear  traces  of  the  Peshitta 
appear  in  the  Biblical  quotations  and  allusions  of 
Isaac  of  Antioch,  who  died  about  460  a.d.  after  a 
long  literary  career.  It  is,  however,  noteworthy 
that  Monophysite  scholars  appear  to  have  been 
less  satisfied  with  the  Peshitta  than  those  of  the 
other  party.  The  fact  that  all  later  attempts  at 
revision  of  the  Syriac  Bible,  such  as  the  Harclean 
version,  were  the  work  of  Monophysites  may, 
perhaps,  be  taken  as  an  indication  that  they 
had  not  adopted  the  Peshitta  so  early  as  other 
divisions  of  Syriac-speaking  Christians. 

The  ordinance  of  Rabbula  mentioned  above, 
which  commands  the  separate  Gospels  to  be 
read,  demands  some  attention.  It  runs  as 
follows  :  "  Let  the  priests  and  deacons  take  care 


62  THE    BIBLE   IN    SYRIAC 

that  in  all  the  churches  there  shall  be  a  copy 
of  the  separated  Gospels  and  that  it  be  read." 
The  Syriac  expression  here  rendered  "  a  copy 
of  the  separated  Gospels,"  is  Evangelion  da- 
Mepharrcshe,  i.e.  "  The  Gospel  of  [or,  according 
to)  the  separated  ones."  What  exactly  is  meant 
by  Evangelion  da-MepharresM  ? 

It  will  probably  be  clearer,  even  if  it  be  not 
more  logical,  at  once  to  give  my  conclusions.  I 
believe  that  Evangelion  da-Mepharreshe  meant 
the  Four  Gospels  as  opposed  to  the  Diatessaron, 
but  not  the  Four  Gospels  in  the  Curetonian 
version  as  opposed  to  the  Peshitta.  In  fact,  I 
know  of  no  term  in  Syriac  which  was  used  to 
distinguish  a  copy  of  the  Curetonian  version  from 
a  copy  of  the  Peshitta.  All  the  places  where 
the  term  Evangelion  da-Mcpharreshe  is  used  can 
be  referred  back  to  the  time  when  there  was  a 
conscious  opposition  between  the  two  classes  o 
Gospel  MSS.  in  Syriac,  viz.  those  which  had 
the  Gospel  arranged  in  one  continuous  narrative, 
and  those  which  had  the  Gospel  arranged  in  four 
separate  books.  The  term  is  equally  applicable 
to  the  Peshitta  and  to  the  Curetonian  as  opposed 
to  the  Diatessaron,  but  except  in  Rabbula's 
Canon,  quoted  above,  it  was  never  applied  to 
the  Peshitta,  because  the  Peshitta  at  once 
ousted    the     Diatessaron.     The    Curetonian    and 


THE   EVANGELION  DA-MEPHARRESHE  63 

the  Diatessaron  had  lived  in  rivalry  side  by 
side,  but  in  the  generation  that  succeeded 
Rabbiila  the  Diatessaron  had  become  a  mere 
literary  curiosity  ;  there  was  no  longer  any  more 
reason  to  speak  of  the  separated  Gospels  than 
of  the  separated  Epistles  of  S.   Paul. 

There  is,  indeed,  one  passage  that  seems  at 
first  to  speak  of  the  Evangelion  da-Mepharreshe 
as  a  recension  of  the  text  in  contra-distinction  to 
the  Peshitta.  Barsalibi  in  commenting  upon 
Matt,  xxvii  16,  17,  says  with  reference  to 
Barabbas :  "Jesus  was  His  name,  for  so  it  is 
written  in  the  Evangelion  da-Mepharreshe"  The 
Curetonian  MS.  is  defective  at  this  point,  but 
Barsalibi's  statement  has  been  confirmed  by  the 
discovery  of  the  Sinai  Palimpsest.  The  Sinai 
Palimpsest  has  Jesus  Bar  Abba,  while  the 
Peshitta,  in  harmony  with  the  ordinary  text, 
has  Bar  Abba  alone.  But  Barsalibi  did  not  get 
his  information  from  a  collation  of  MSS.  He 
was  a  mere  compiler  from  earlier  scholars,  and 
this  very  statement  is  found  word  for  word  in 
the  Lexicon  of  Bar  Bahlul.  The  common  source 
of  Barsalibi  and  Bar  Bahlul  is  at  present 
unknown  ;  it  does  not  appear  to  have  been  the 
Commentary  of  S.  Ephraim  on  the  Diatessaron, 
but  it  may  very  well  date  from  a  time  when  the 
Diatessaron  was  current.     Now  the  Diatessaron 


64  THE   BIBLE   IN    SYRIAC 

contained  many  of  the  peculiarities  of  text  which 
make  Cureton's  MS.  and  the  Sinai  Palimpsest 
such  interesting  documents,  but  it  is  a  curious 
fact  that  no  trace  of  the  reading  Jesus  Barabba 
is  found  in  our  Diatessaron  authorities.  I  venture, 
therefore,  to  suppose  that  the  passage  repeated 
by  Barsalibi  and  by  Bar  Bahlul  is  an  excerpt 
from  some  commentary  on  the  Diatessaron,  or 
from  some  discourse  upon  Barabbas  in  which 
the  Diatessaron  was  used  as  the  basis  of  the 
narrative.  In  this  case  the  compiler  of  the  note 
does  not  contrast  the  Evangelion  da-Mepharreshe 
with  the  Peshitta,  but  with  the  Diatessaron. 

One  point  remains  to  be  noticed.  If  my  con- 
jecture be  correct  that  Rabbula  in  ordering  the 
use  of  the  Evangelion  da-Mepharreshe  had  really 
in  view  the  substitution  of  the  Peshitta  for  the 
Diatessaron,  it  follows  that  the  Diatessaron  was 
the  only  serious  rival  that  the  Peshitta  had  to 
face  at  the  time  of  its  publication.  That  the 
"Old  Syriac"  version  of  the  New  Testament  (if 
I  may  employ  the  question-begging  term)  had 
had  a  long  and  complicated  literary  history  is 
proved  by  the  extensive  variation  between  the 
texts  of  the  two  surviving  MSS.  of  the  Gospels 
in  that  version.  The  Sinai  Palimpsest  and 
Cureton's  MS.  are  clearly  representatives  of  one 
and  the  same  translation,  but  they  differ  in  some 


ABSENCE  OF   MIXED  TEXTS  65 

places  very  widely  from   each   other,    almost  as 
widely  in  fact  as  MSS.  of  the  Old  Latin  version 
of  the  Gospels.     But  the  Patristic  evidence  does 
not  suggest  that  the  version  to  which  the  Sinai 
Palimpsest  and  Cureton's  MS.  belong  enjoyed  a 
wide  circulation  in  the  Church  during  the  fourth 
and  fifth    centuries.     Whatever  may  have    been 
the  state  of  things  with  regard  to  the  Acts  and 
Epistles,  about  which  we  know  little  or  nothing, 
it  is  evident  that  when  Rabbula  became  Bishop 
of  Edessa  the   form    in   which    the   Gospel    was 
practically  known   to  Syriac-speaking  Christians 
was    Tatian's     Harmony.       This    explains     the 
success  of  Rabbula's  efforts,  and  the  absence  of 
Gospel  MSS.  containing  the  Peshitta  text  mixed 
with   readings  derived    from    the    "Old   Syriac." 
The  Latin  MSS.  with  mixed  texts  are  descended 
from  Old  Latin   MSS.   corrected,   but  not  quite 
thoroughly,    to    the   official    Vulgate.     But    you 
cannot   correct  a   copy   of  the   Diatessaron   into 
a    copy    of   the    four   Gospels.     It    was    not    a 
question  of  changing  the  readings,   but  of  sub- 
stituting one  book  for  another.     Wherever,  there- 
fore, the   change  was  made,  and  we  learn  from 
Theodoret  that  the  change  was  made  wholesale, 
no  mixture  of  texts  took  place.     The  Diatessaron 
codex  was  taken  away,  and  a  copy  of  the  Peshitta 
was  put  in  its  place. 

E 


66  THE  BIBLE   IN   SYRIAC 

Meanwhile  the  copies  of  the  unrevised 
Evangelion  da-Mepharreshe  remained  where  they 
were.  The  two  which  survive  contain  no 
liturgical  marks  in  the  margins  as  is  generally 
the  case  with  books  intended  for  service.  They 
are,  so  to  speak,  library  volumes.  To  us  they 
are  inestimably  precious  as  survivals  from  a 
previous  age,  relics  of  the  time  before  the 
Syriac  -  speaking  Church  became  the  servile 
imitator  of  Greek  Christianity.  But  to  the 
contemporaries  of  Rabbula,  who  allowed  them 
to  rest  undisturbed  on  their  shelves,  they  were 
neither  recommended  to  be  used  nor  condemned 
to  be  suppressed  by  Church  authority ;  they 
were  simply  old-fashioned  books  to  be  left  alone 
and  forgotten.  Thus  it  has  come  to  pass  that 
two  MSS.  of  the  Old  Syriac  Gospels  have 
survived,  while  not  one  single  copy  of  the  once 
popular  Syriac  Diatessaron  has  reached  the  hand 
of  modern  scholars. 

We  may  now  leave  the  Peshitta  on  one  side. 
We  have  seen  that  the  establishment  of  the 
Peshitta  New  Testament  marks  the  coming  of 
a  new  order  of  things  almost  as  definitely 
as  the  adoption  of  the  English  Bible  marks 
the  English  Reformation.  Now  we  have  to 
peer  into  the  dark  years  of  the  earlier  period, 
and    see    whether    the    earlier    history    of    the 


DATE  OF  THE  SYRIAC   DIATESSARON  67 

Bible  in  Syriac  can  tell  us  anything  of  the 
development  of  the  early  Syriac-speaking  Church. 
The  three  documents  that  we  have  to  consider 
are  the  Old  Testament  Peshitta,  the  Diatessaron 
and  the  Evangelion  da-Mepharreshe.  What  are 
the  dates  of  these  documents,  and  with  what 
stages  of  development  in  the  Syriac-speaking 
Church  are  they  connected? 

Of  the  Evangelion  da-Mepharreshe,  the  Old 
Syriac  version  of  the  Four  Gospels,  we  have 
two  copies,  viz.  the  Sinai  Palimpsest  and 
Cureton's  MS.  The  Old  Testament  Peshitta 
is  represented  by  many  MSS.,  all  having  in 
essentials  the  same  text.  The  Diatessaron  is 
not  represented  in  its  original  form  by  any 
surviving  MS.,  but  we  can  form  a  fairly  clear 
idea  of  the  character  of  the  Gospel  text  from 
which  Tatian's  Harmony  was  compiled  by  collect- 
ing the  quotations  from  it  in  S.  Ephraim's  com- 
mentary (itself  only  preserved  in  an  Armenian 
translation)  and  supplementing  these  by  the 
quotations  in  the  other  genuine  works  of  S. 
Ephraim  and  the  homilies  of  Aphraates. 

One  thing  we  do  know  about  the  Diatessaron. 
We  know  within  narrow  limits  its  date ;  it  cannot 
be  later  than  172  or  173  a.d.  Tatian,  who  made 
this  Harmony  from  the  Four  Gospels,  came  back 
to  his  native  Mesopotamia  from  Rome  about  that 


68  THE   BIBLE   IN    SYRIAC 

time,  that  is  to  say  a  few  years  before  Hystasp 
the  bishop  of  the  Christians  converted  Bardaisan, 
according  to  the  story  we  discussed  in  the  last 
lecture.  A  few  years  later,  according  to  Syriac 
ecclesiastical  tradition,  Palut  is  ordained  Bishop 
of  Edessa  by  Serapion  of  Antioch.  Now 
Serapion  was  not  only  a  pillar  of  orthodoxy  : 
his  activity,  we  learn  from  Eusebius,  was 
especially  directed  towards  the  discouragement 
of  the  reading  of  rivals  to  the  canonical  Gospels. 
It  is  not  likely  that  he  would  have  approved  of 
the  Diatessaron,  itself  a  substitute  for  the  Four 
Gospels,  and  the  work  of  a  man  who  held 
heretical  opinions.  Our  first  conclusion  there- 
fore must  be  that  we  can  only  connect  the 
mission  of  Palut  with  the  use  of  Tatian's 
Harmony  by  way  of  opposition.  It  is  conceiv- 
able that  Palut  or  his  successors  may  have 
sanctioned  the  use  of  the  Diatessaron.  It  is 
inconceivable  that  Palut,  as  Serapion's  missionary, 
would  himself  have  introduced  it. 

But  some  one  may  say,  does  not  the  missionary 
work  of  Tatian  and  the  subsequent  use  of  the 
Diatessaron  in  the  Syriac  -  speaking  Church 
suggest  an  easy  explanation  of  the  rise  of 
Christianity  in  the  Euphrates  Valley  ?  You  have 
shown  us,  it  may  be  urged,  that  the  legendary 
accounts   of   the    evangelisation   of    Edessa    are 


THE   WORK   OF   TATIAN  69 

full  of  contradictions.  May  not  Tatian  himself 
and  his  companions  have  been  the  original 
evangelists  ?  To  carry  on  the  work  Tatian  may 
have  prepared  a  Syriac  Harmony  of  the  Gospels. 
This  then  was  the  form  in  which  the  Gospel 
originally  reached  Edessa.  Palut  may  have 
brought  with  him  the  Evangelion  da-Mepharrcshe, 
the  Old  Syriac  version  of  the  four  separate 
Gospels.  But  the  Diatessaron  was  already 
endeared  to  Syriac-speaking  Christians,  and  the 
orthodox  bishops  purchased  the  obedience  of 
their  flock  by  allowing  the  heretic's  Harmony 
to  be  read  in  Church. 

Part  of  this,  I  may  say  at  once,  I  believe  to  be  a 
true  account  of  what  took  place.  I  have  come  to 
believe  that  the  Diatessaron  must  have  preceded 
the  Old  Syriac  version  of  the  Gospels  at  Edessa. 
Even  the  Doctrine  of  Addai  tells  us  that  at 
the  preaching  of  Addai  the  people  assembled 
day  by  day  for  the  daily  service  and  for  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  New  of  the  Diatessaron} 
And  on  general  grounds  it  is  very  difficult  to 
think  that  a  Harmony  could  anywhere  have 
usurped  the  place  of  the  four  canonical  Gospels, 
so  late  as  the  last  quarter  of  the  second  century. 
The  air  was  full  of  the  theories  which  had  just 
found  formal  expression  in  S.  Irenaeus. 

1  Doctrine  of  Addai,  p.  34. 


70  THE   BIBLE   IN    SYRIAC 

But  without  going  any  further  at  present  on 
this  question,  let  us  come  back  to  the  third 
document,  whose  origin  also  we  must  explain 
before  we  can  write  the  literary  history  of  the 
beginnings  of  Christianity  in  Edessa.  The 
Peshitta  version  of  the  Old  Testament  was  not 
revised  by  Rabbula.  We  have  argued  that 
the  New  Testament  Peshitta  was  first  published 
in  Rabbula's  time,  because  the  quotations  in 
Syriac  writers  earlier  than  Rabbula  do  not 
agree  with  its  text.  The  same  argument  proves 
that  the  Old  Testament  Peshitta  existed  long 
before  the  fifth  century.  The  quotations  of 
Ephraim  and  of  Aphraates,  the  allusions  in  the 
Acts  of  Thomas,  all  agree  substantially  with  the 
text  as  preserved  in  our  ancient  MSS.  I  do 
not  say  there  are  no  variations,  but  they  are 
surprisingly  few  in  number.  We  are  carried 
back  to  the  end  of  the  second  century  as  the  latest 
date  to  which  we  can  assign  the  existing  version 
of  the  Old  Testament  in  Syriac.  Thus  it  is  at 
least  contemporary  with  Palut  and  with  Tatian, 
and  we  ask  how  they  stand  one  to  the  other  ? 

Here,  again,  part  of  the  answer  is  clear.  The 
Old  Testament  in  Syriac  cannot  have  been 
the  work  of  Tatian.  Nothing  that  we  know 
about  Tatian,  his  opinions,  life,  or  writings, 
would  suggest    that    he    had    any   knowledge  of 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT   PESHITTA  7 1 

Hebrew.  But  the  Old  Testament  in  Syriac 
is  mainly  a  translation  direct  from  the  Hebrew. 
This  is  one  of  the  central  facts  which  we  have 
to  take  into  account  in  constructing  our  history 
of  the  rise  of  Christianity  in  Edessa.  All 
through  the  Old  Testament,  but  especially  in 
the  Pentateuch,  the  Peshitta  reveals  itself  as 
the  handiwork  of  one  who  had  a  good  know- 
ledge of  Hebrew,  and  a  still  more  intimate 
acquaintance  with  some  branches  of  Jewish 
tradition.  I  do  not  forget  that  the  influence  of 
the  Greek  Bible,  especially  in  Isaiah,  often 
makes  itself  felt ;  that  element  I  shall  notice 
later.  But  the  main  point  is  clear.  Whatever 
revision  the  version  may  have  received  at  later 
times,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  conceive  the 
elements  in  the  Peshitta  which  betray  Hebrew 
knowledge  as  the  work  of  Christian  Syrians. 
The  Old  Testament  Peshitta  must  have  been, 
in  the  first  instance,  the  work  of  Jews.  To  give 
but  one  instance  out  of  many,  what  but  know- 
ledge of  Jewish  Aramaic  nomenclature  could 
have  induced  the  Syriac  Bible  to  call  the  land 
of  Bashan  (which  the  Greeks  call  Batanaea) 
by  the  name  Mathnin}1  It  is  not  likely  that 
the  good  folk  of  Edessa  had  a  special  nomen- 
clature for  the  petty  districts  east  of  the  Jordan. 

1  E.g.  Nahum  1451  Chr.  v  16,  etc. 


72  THE   BIBLE   IN   SYRIAC 

You  remember  that  when  Addai  came  from 
Palestine  to  Edessa,  according  to  the  story,  he 
found  there  a  community  of  trading  Jews.  He 
himself  lodged  with  one  Tobia,  son  of  Tobia, 
a  Jew  of  Palestine.  According  to  the  story, 
again,  Addai's  preaching  was  successful  among 
the  Jews.  What  does  this  mean,  but  that 
Edessa  was  a  centre  of  Jewish  life  before  it 
was  a  centre  of  Christianity,  and  that  when 
Christianity  came,  it  made,  as  at  Corinth  in 
S.  Paul's  time,  many  converts  from  among  the 
Jewish  community?  Thus  we  may  infer  that 
the  Old  Testament  in  Syriac  was  originally  a 
vernacular  rendering  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures 
made  by  Jews  for  Jews  resident  at  Edessa  and 
speaking  the  language  of  the  country. 

Several  indications  seem  to  me  to  confirm 
this  theory.  The  date  is  appropriate.  With  the 
loss  of  the  national  life  in  Palestine  it  became 
increasingly  necessary  to  give  the  Scriptures  in 
the  tongue  of  the  local  community.  Possibly 
also  the  favour  which  Josephus  tells  us  that 
the  royal  house  of  Adiabene  displayed  for  some 
time  towards  the  Jewish  religion  may  have 
given  an  impulse  towards  translating  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets  into  the  vernacular  of  the 
Euphrates  Valley.  The  Peshitta,  moreover, 
appears  to  have  been  used  as  the  basis  of  the 


TRACES  OF  JEWISH   INFLUENCE  73 

existing  Jewish  Aramaic  Targum  on  the  Book 
of  Proverbs.  But  if  we  regard  the  Peshitta  as 
a  Jewish  work,  we  must  at  the  same  time  confess 
that  we  cannot  claim  to  have  the  translation  quite 
in  its  original  form.  In  the  Prophets  it  is  evident 
that  the  Syriac  has  been  here  and  there  revised 
to  make  it  agree  with  the  Greek,  i.e.  with  the 
Church's  Bible.  And  here  again  I  seem  to  trace 
the  hand  of  Palut,  or  perhaps  it  would  be  more 
scientific  here,  as  elsewhere,  to  say  the  mission 
from  Antioch  which  is  associated  with  the  names 
of  Palut  and  Serapion. 

One  thing  I  venture  to  think  certain  with 
regard  to  the  Old  Syriac  version  of  the  Gospels, 
and  that  is,  that  it  was  later  than  the  Old 
Testament  Peshitta.  This  is  clear  from  the 
accurate  way  in  which  the  Old  Testament 
names  are  spelt.  To  go  no  further  than 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  it  requires  some 
antiquarian  knowledge  to  re-transcribe  into  Semitic 
letters  the  Greek  words  'A/fyaa/z,  'lo-ann,  5Ia/cw/3. 
Each  of  these  names  is  spelt  with  a  different 
guttural  in  Hebrew,  and  the  spelling  is  correctly 
preserved  in  the  Old  Testament  Peshitta,  as  is 
natural  in  a  translation  from  the  original.  But 
the  Syriac  Gospels  are,  of  course,  a  translation 
from  the  Greek,  and  in  the  Greek  the  Semitic 
gutturals  are  unrepresented.     The  fact  that   the 


74  THE   BIBLE   IN   SYRIAC 

Old  Syriac  Gospels  preserve  the  names  of  the 
Patriarchs  correctly  is  in  itself  very  strong 
evidence  that  the  translator  of  the  Old  Syriac 
Gospels  was  familiar  with  the  Old  Testament 
in  Syriac. 

The   same   argument  suggests  the  priority  of 
the  Old  Testament  Peshitta  to  the  Diatessaron, 
though  in  the  Diatessaron  the  proper  names  do 
not  appear  to  have  been  so  carefully  equated  to 
their  Hebrew  equivalents.     The  mutual  relations 
of  the  Old  Syriac  Gospels  and  the  Diatessaron 
— I  use  the  term  advisedly,  for  the  text  of  these 
works  were  undoubtedly  modified  the   one   from 
the  other  during  their  long  history — their  mutual 
relations    can   only    be   adequately   discussed    in 
detail,  and  textual  detail    is   eminently   unsuited 
to   Lectures  such    as   these.     But    I    venture    to 
assert  that  the  main  textual  characteristics  of  the 
Diatessaron  and  the  Evangelion  da-McpharreshL,> 
i.e.  the  Old  Syriac  version  of  the  Four  Gospels, 
can  be  distinguished  in  a  general  way.     The  two 
works  often  agree  in  langfuap'e  in  the  most  curious 
and  intimate  fashion.     Again  and  again  we  find 
the  Diatessaron  agreeing  in  turns  of  expression  or 
remarkable  renderings  with  the  Sinai  Palimpsest 
or    Cureton's    MS.     But    in   questions    of    real 
various  readings  in   the   underlying   Greek   text 
the  agreement   is   not   so   pronounced.     In    text 


THE  OLD   SYRIAC   AND   THE   DIATESSARON  75 

the  Diatessaron  agrees,  much  more  than  the 
Old  Syriac  does,  with  Codex  Bezae  and  the 
Old  Latin  version.  In  a  word,  it  came  from 
the  West,  from  Rome,  and  it  agrees  with  the 
Western  and  Roman  text.  I  have  a  strong 
suspicion  that  much  of  what  is  thought  to  be 
specially  "Western"  in  the  Old  Syriac  Gospels 
is  derived  through  the  Diatessaron  from  the  text 
current  in  Rome  in  the  middle  of  the  second 
century. 

As  I  have  said,  demonstration  of  these  textual 
affinities  is  wearisome  and  unconvincing,  except 
for  those  prepared  to  weigh  a  large  mass  of 
technical  evidence,  and  to  consider  a  number  of 
the  minor  problems  on  their  own  merits.  I  shall 
not  attempt  such  a  demonstration  here.  In  its 
place  I  shall  venture  to  set  before  you  a  picture 
of  the  conclusions  to  which  I  have  arrived.  Such 
a  picture  cannot  claim  to  be  more  than  a  con- 
sistent explanation  of  the  historical  data ;  the 
demonstration  of  its  general  truth,  if  you  accept 
it,  must  be  sought  for  in  its  agreement  with  the 
course  of  history. 

First,  then,  we  are  to  suppose  a  Jewish  colony 
settled  at  Edessa,  who  have  provided  themselves 
with  a  translation  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  in- 
cluding some  non-canonical  writings  such  as  the 
Wisdom   of   Ben    Sira.     To   this   colony    comes 


76  THE   BIBLE   IN   SYRIAC 

a  Christian  missionary,  Addai  by  name.  The 
mission,  as  at  Corinth,  is  successful.  The 
majority  of  the  Jews  join  the  new  movement, 
together  with  a  number  of  the  Gentile  natives 
of  the  place.  The  date  of  this  movement  can 
only  be  conjectured.  Doubtless  it  was  later  than 
the  time  of  the  sack  of  Edessa  during  the  wars 
of  Trajan.  A  likely  date,  I  venture  to  think,  is 
the  period  of  Bar  Cochba's  rebellion,  about  135. 
That  period  was  a  parting  of  the  ways  for  many 
Jews  ;  and  those  who  disapproved  of  the  policy  of 
political  revolt  and  of  the  theology  of  Aqiba  might 
more  likely  then  than  at  a  later  period  accept  the 
solution  offered  by  the  Christian  religion. 

The  first  Christian  community  at  Edessa 
probably  had  no  New  Testament.  The  Law 
and  the  Prophets,  as  interpreted  in  the  new  light, 
sufficed  for  them.  But  about  a  generation  after 
Christianity  first  appeared  in  Edessa,  Tatian  the 
philosopher,  returning  to  end  his  days  in  his 
native  Mesopotamia,  supplied  the  want  by 
publishing  a  Syriac  translation  of  his  Harmony 
of  the  Gospels.  The  circumstance  that  on  Syriac 
ground  it  had  no  rivals  made  the  Syriac 
Diatessaron  an  instant  and  assured  success. 
Elsewhere  it  was  a  literary  curiosity,  but  among 
Syriac-speaking  Christians  it  was  the  Evangelic 
record.     Finally,  about  200  a.d.,  after  a  persecu- 


SUMMARY  77 

tion  had  disorganised  the  Church  in  Edessa,  it 
was  re-established,  on  the  basis  of  closer  union 
with  the  Catholic  Church  inside  the  Roman 
Empire,  under  Palut,  a  bishop  who  brought  in  a 
version  of  the  New  Testament — i.e.  the  Four 
Gospels,  Acts,  and  the  fourteen  Pauline  Epistles 
— together  with  an  edition  of  the  Old  Testament, 
slightly  revised  from  the  Greek,  especially  in 
Isaiah  and  the  Psalms,  and  enlarged  by  versions 
from  the  Greek  of  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha. 
Palut  at  first  was  regarded  by  some  as  the 
leader  of  a  sect,  but  he  or  his  immediate  suc- 
cessors reconciled  the  great  majority  of  the 
Christians  in  Edessa  and  the  Euphrates  Valley 
to  the  Catholic  organisation.  One  point,  however, 
was  yielded  to  custom.  The  Four  Gospels  were 
received  and  studied  by  scholars,  but  the 
Diatessaron  continued  to  be  read  in  Church, 
and  to  be  the  form  in  which  the  Gospel  was 
familiarly  known  to  Syriac-speaking  Christians 
down  to  the  episcopate  of  Rabbula  early  in 
the  fifth  century.  Rabbula  suppressed  the 
Diatessaron  and  substituted  in  its  place  a 
revision  of  the  Old  Syriac  version  of  the  Four 
Gospels,  in  which  both  the  readings  and  the 
renderings  were  brought  into  much  closer  con- 
formity with  the  Greek  text  as  read  in  Antioch 
in  the  fifth  century.     At  the  same  time,  also  in 


78  THE   BIBLE   IN   SYRIAC 

accordance  with  the  custom  of  Antioch  early  in 
the  fifth  century,  he  introduced  a  version  of  the 
First  Epistle  of  S.  Peter,  the  First  Epistle  of 
S.  John,  and  the  Epistle  of  S.  James,  together 
with  a  revised  text  of  the  Acts  and  Pauline 
Epistles. 

The  text  of  the  Gospels  underlying  the  Syriac 
Diatessaron,  where  it  can  be  recovered  in  its 
original  form,  represents  the  Greek  text  as  read 
in  Rome  about  170  a.d.  The  text  of  the  Gospels 
in  the  Old  Syriac  version,  represents,  where  it 
differs  from  the  Diatessaron,  the  Greek  text  as 
read  in  Antioch  about  200  a.d.  Finally,  the 
text  of  the  Peshitta  Gospels,  where  it  differs 
from  the  Old  Syriac  and  from  the  Diatessaron, 
represents  the  Greek  text  as  read  in  Antioch 
about  400  a.d. 

This  rapid  summary  of  conclusions  is,  of  course, 
to  some  extent  hypothetical.  But  I  venture  to 
claim  that  it  has  been  made  in  accordance  with 
what  the  evidence,  both  textual  and  historical, 
actually  suggests,  and  I  hope  that  the  more 
important  parts  may  be  in  the  future  more 
formally  established. 


LECTURE    III 

EARLY    SYRIAC    THEOLOGY 

It  has  ever  been  the  wisdom  of  the  Church  of 
England  to  recite  on  the  greater  Feasts  of  the 
ecclesiastical  year  the  Latin  profession  of  faith 
known  to  us  as  the  Athanasian  Creed.  That 
venerable  document  is  now  unpopular.  It  is 
argumentative  and  unsentimental.  But  there 
is  one  sentence  of  the  Athanasian  Creed  which 
puts  the  essence  of  the  great  controversies  of 
the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  so  tersely  that 
I  have  ventured  to  use  it  as  a  sort  of  text  for 
my  discourse  this  afternoon.  As  you  all  know, 
the  Athanasian  Creed  teaches  us  to  say:  "For 
like  as  we  are  compelled  by  the  Christian  verity 
to  acknowledge  every  Person  by  himself  to  be 
God  and  Lord ;  so  are  we  forbidden  by  the 
Catholick  Religion  to  say,  There  be  three  Gods, 
or  three  Lords."1 

1  In  the  original  the  words  are :  Quia  sicut  singillatim  unam- 
quamque personam  et  Deuvi  et Dominum  cenfiteri Christiana  ucritate 
comfellimur,  ita  ires  Deos  aut  Dcminos  dicere  catholica  religione 
■brohibemnr. 

79 


80  EARLY  SYRIAC  THEOLOGY 

The  Catholick  Religion  is  the  living  and 
continuous  tradition  of  the  doctrine  once  com- 
mitted to  the  saints  by  revelation,  the  Christian 
verity  is  the  logical  development  by  Christian 
thinkers  of  the  devotion  of  the  faithful  to  their 
Lord,  as  interpreted  in  the  light  of  Greek 
philosophy.  Here  at  last  we  reach  what  for 
Christians  is  not  necessarily  sacred.  It  is  a  real 
and  serious  question,  how  much  of  the  expression 
of  our  religion  is  conditioned  not  by  Divine 
revelation,  but  by  the  effort  to  fit  it  in  to  the 
philosophical  ideas  current  at  the  time  when 
Christian  theology  became  articulate.  To-day 
I  shall  attempt  to  throw  a  sidelight  on  the  great 
theological  controversies  by  examining  what  was 
thought  of  some  fundamental  articles  of  the 
Christian  religion  by  Syriac-speaking  Churchmen 
who  lived  apart  from  the  atmosphere  of  Greek 
and  Latin  thought. 

We  must  not  take  the  sermons  in  the  Doctrine 
of  Addai  as  the  earliest  expression  of  Syriac 
theology,  for  we  have  seen  that  this  work 
contains  some  late  elements,  and  it  is  only  likely 
that  the  redactor  of  an  apocryphal  work  writing 
at  the  very  end  of  the  fourth  century  would  put 
into  Addai's  mouth  phrases  which  were  never 
current  until  they  were  coined  in  the  stress  of 
controversy.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  that  excellent 


APHRAATES  8 I 

scholar  the  Abbe-  Tixeront,  who  has  very  care- 
fully examined  the  theological  statements  in  the 
Doctrine  of  Addai,  comes  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  phraseology  is  post-Nicene  in  thought  as  well 
as  in  date.  But  if  we  cannot  use  the  Doctrine  of 
Addai  as  a  starting-point,  we  have  an  excellent 
substitute  in  the  work  commonly  known  as  the 
Homilies  of  Aphraates.  This  work  is  admirably 
fitted,  both  from  the  scope  of  its  contents  and  the 
personality  of  the  writer,  to  serve  as  our  intro- 
duction to  the  theology  of  the  early  Syriac- 
speaking  Church. 

Aphraates,  or  more  accurately  Afrahat, 
commonly  known  as  the  Persian  Sage,  flourished 
in  the  first  half  of  the  fourth  century.  The  first 
ten  of  his  twenty-two  Homilies  were  composed 
in  the  year  2,37,  the  remaining  twelve  in  344,  and 
the  additional  Homily  On  the  Cluster  is  dated 
345  a.d.  He  was  a  monk  and  a  bishop.  One 
rather  late  tradition  claims  him  for  the  head  of 
the  Convent  of  S.  Matthew  near  Mosul.  It  is 
certain  that  he  had  a  seat  in  a  Synod  held  in 
the  year  344,  and  that  he  was  selected  to  draw 
up  the  encyclical  letter  of  the  Synod  addressed 
to  the  Metropolitan  diocese  of  Seleucia  and 
Ctesiphon.  This  letter  he  subsequently  published 
as  No.  14  of  the  Homilies. 

The     plan     of     Aphraates'     great     work     is 


82  EARLY  SYRIAC  THEOLOGY 

admirably  fitted  to  give  us  a  general  survey  of 
Syriac  theology.  We  speak  of  the  ''Homilies" 
of  Aphraates,  but  the  volume  of  discourses  which 
goes  by  this  name  is  not  a  collection  of  occasional 
sermons.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  a  full  and  ordered 
exposition  of  the  Christian  Faith  in  answer  to  a 
request  for  information  from  an  inquirer.  The 
twenty-two  Homilies  correspond  to  the  twenty- 
two  letters  of  the  Semitic  alphabet,  and  the  first 
word  of  each  Homily  begins  with  the  correspond- 
ing letter  of  the  alphabet  in  order,  the  first  with 
Alapk,  the  second  with  Beth,  and  so  right  through. 
This  is  not  a  mere  fanciful  quip,  but  a  serious 
plan  for  preserving  the  true  order  of  the  discourses. 
It  is  difficult  to  interpolate  or  mutilate  an  acrostic 
without  immediate  discovery.  And  as  if  the 
acrostic  arrangement  were  not  enough,  Aphraates 
enumerates  the  series  in  order  at  the  end  of  the 
twenty-second  Homily. 

It  is  necessary  to  emphasise  beforehand  the 
official  position  and  the  unblemished  repute 
of  Aphraates,  if  we  are  to  appreciate  the 
significance  of  what  he  has  to  say.  Later 
generations  of  Syriac  writers  have  very  little 
to  tell  us  about  him  beyond  what  we  learn  from 
his  writings,  but  all  alike,  both  Nestorians  and 
Monophysites,  testify  to  the  orthodoxy  of  this 
fourth  century  Father. 


THE    HOMILY  ON    FAITH  83 

Let  us  begin  with  Homily  I.  On  Faith.1  Out 
of  the  abundance  of  the  heart  the  mouth  speaketh 
and  in  a  doctrinal  treatise  that  which  is  put  first  is 
in  the  eyes  of  the  writer  fundamental.  Faith, 
according  to  Aphraates,  is  like  a  building  made 
of  various  materials  of  various  colours.  But 
the  foundation  of  our  faith  is  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Rock  upon  which  the  whole  is  built,  as  said 
the  prophets  (§  2).  First,  a  man  believes,  then 
loves,  then  hopes,  then  is  justified  and  perfected, 
and  he  becomes  a  Temple  for  the  Messiah  to 
dwell  in,  as  Jeremiah  said  :  The  Temple  of  the 
Lord,  the  Temple  of  the  Lord — ye  are  the  Temple 
of  the  Lord,  if  ye  will  make  fair  your  zvays  and 
your  works,2  and  as  said  our  Lord  Himself 
Ye  are  in  Me,  and  I  am  in  y 021  (§  3).  The  man 
who  has  Faith  will  study  to  make  himself  worthy 
of  being  a  dwelling  -  place  for  the  Spirit  of  the 
Messiah.  There  must  be  Fasting,  Prayer,  Love, 
Alms,  Humility,  Virginity,  Continence,  Wisdom, 
Hospitality,  Simplicity,  Patience,  Gentleness, 
Sadness,3     Purity :     Faith    asks     for     all     these 

1  This  Homily  is  translated  in  full  by  Dr  Gwynn,  Nicene  and  Post- 
Nicene  Fathers,  vol.  xiii,  pp.  345-352.  It  has  also  been  translated 
by  Dr  Budge  in  his  edition  of  Philoxenus,  vol.  ii,  pp.  clxxv-clxxxvii. 
The  analysis  here  given,  together  with  much  of  the  material  of  the 
present  lecture,  is  taken  out  of  my  own  little  book  Early  Christianity 
outside  the  Roman  Empire. 

2  Jer.  vii  4,  5  (Pesh.). 

3  A  technical  term  for  the  monastic  life. 


84  EARLY  SYRIAC  THEOLOGY 

ornaments  (§  4).  Christ  is  both  the  foundation 
and  the  inhabitant  of  the  House  of  Faith : 
Jeremiah  says  men  are  the  Temples  of  God, 
and  the  Apostles  said :  The  Spirit  of  Christ 
dwelleth  in  yon.  This  comes  to  the  same  thing 
for  the  Lord  said  :  I  and  my  Father  are  one  (§  5). 
The  Messiah  is  spoken  of  by  the  prophets  as 
a  Stone  or  Rock  (§§  6-9),  and  as  a  Light  (§§  10- 
11).  He  is  the  only  foundation  that  can  stand 
the  fire  (§§  12,  13).  Such  Faith  the  Saints  of 
old  time  had  (§§  14-16),  and  those  also  who 
were  benefited  by  our  Lord  on  earth  (§  17). 
Faith  carries  us  up  to  heaven,  saves  us  from 
the  Deluge,  looses  the  prisoners,  quenches  the 
fire,  feeds  the  hungry,  brings  back  from  the 
grave,  stops  the  mouths  of  lions,  humbles  the 
proud,  exalts  the  meek  (§   18). 

Aphraates  does  not  leave  us  in  vague  gener- 
alities. After  the  praise  of  Faith  he  goes  on 
to  define  it. 

"  For  this,"  he  says  (§  19),  "is  Faith  :  — 
When  a  man  shall  believe  in  God,  the  Lord  of  all, 

That  made  the  heavens  and  the  earth  and  the  seas 
and  all  that  in  them  is, 

Who  made  Adam  in  His  image, 

Who  gave  the  Law  to  Moses. 

Who  sent  of  His  Spirit  in  the  Prophets, 

Who  sent  His  Messiah  into  the  world ; 
And  that  a  man  should  believe  in  the  bringing  to  life  of 
the  dead, 


THE   CREED  OF  APHRAATES  85 

And  believe  also  in  the  mystery  of  Baptism  : 

This  is  the  Faith  of  the  Church  of  God. 
And  that  a  man  should  separate  himself 

from  observing  hours  and  sabbaths  and  months  and 

seasons, 
and   enchantments   and   divinations   and    astrology 

and  magic, 
and  from  fornication  and  from  revelling  and  from 
vain  doctrines,  the  weapons  of  the  Evil  One,  and 
from  the  blandishment  of  honeyed   words,  and 
from  blasphemy  and  from  adultery, 
And  that  no  man  should  bear  false  witness, 

and  that  none  should  speak  with  double  tongues  : 
These  are  the  works  of  the  Faith  that  is  laid   on 
the  true  Rock,  which  is  the  Messiah, 
upon  whom  all  the  building  doth  rise." 

Such  is  the  Creed  of  Aphraates.  To  him 
Christianity  was  the  revelation  of  a  Divine 
Spirit  dwelling-  in  man  and  fighting  against 
moral  evil,  not  first  and  foremost  a  tissue  of 
philosophical  speculation  about  the  nature  of 
the  Divinity  in  itself.  But  this  is  wholly  alien 
to  the  temper  of  Greek  and  Latin  Christianity, 
as  it  manifests  itself  from  the  fourth  century 
onward. 

About  150  years  after  Aphraates  wrote, 
Philoxenus,  Bishop  of  Hierapolis,  a  distinguished 
Syriac  scholar  and  theologian,  wrote  his  Dis- 
courses on  the  Christian  Life  and  Character. 
He  also  began  with  Christian  Faith  and  he 
also   thought   well    to   define   it.      This    is  what 


86  EARLY  SYRIAC  THEOLOGY 

he  says.1  "All  these  things  by  Faith  thou 
hast  heard  concerning  God :  that  He  is  from 
everlasting  and  world  without  end,  and  that 
He  existeth  in  His  own  essence,  and  that  He 
hath  not  come  into  being  from  anything  else  ; 
and  that  He  is  not  One  Person,  but  an  essential 
substance  that  is  believed  and  confessed  in  Three 
Persons.  And,  moreover,  concerning  the  Persons 
the  word  of  Faith  teacheth  thee  to  affirm  that 
He  Who  begot  hath  not  been  divided,  and  that 
He  Who  was  begotten  hath  not  been  separated, 
but  the  Father  existeth  with  His  Son  essentially 
and  everlastingly,  together  with  the  Holy  Spirit 
consubstantial  with  Them."  And  so  on,  and 
so  on,  for  as  much  again  as  I  have  read,  followed 
by  a  disquisition  upon  the  nature  of  the  Cherubim, 
and  what  is  of  Faith  concerning  their  spiritual 
constitution.  In  Philoxenus  the  Faith  has  ceased 
to  vivify  the  whole  personality ;  it  has  become 
a  matter  of  the  head  and  not  of  the  heart,  a 
matter  of  theological  adhesion  rather  than  of 
moral  allegiance.  With  the  Syrians,  as  with  us, 
the  philosophy  of  the  Greeks  was  an  alien  mode 
of  thought,  and  a  Faith  which  expresses  itself 
in  a  foreign  or  an  outworn  philosophy  tends  to 
become  fundamentally  artificial. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  Aphraates  did 

1  Budge's  Philoxenus  i  32  (Eng.  Tr.  ii  29). 


TRINITARIAN   TEACHING   IN   APHRAATES  87 

not  acknowledge  the  Trinity.  We  learn  from 
him  that  the  Syriac-speaking  Church,  like  the 
rest  of  the  Christian  world,  baptized  in  the 
Triple  Name,  and  his  evidence  is  confirmed  by 
the  Doctrine  of  Addai  and  other  early  Syriac 
documents.  "  The  Head  of  the  Man,"  says 
Aphraates  (xxiii  63=  Wright  500),  "is  the 
Messiah.  O  thou  that  swearest  by  thy  head 
and  that  falsely,  if  thou  dost  affirm  the  three 
great  and  glorious  Names  invoked  upon  thy 
head,  the  Father  and  the  Son  and  the  Holy 
Spirit,  when  thou  didst  receive  the  seal  of  thy 
life,  in  a  word,  if  Baptism  be  affirmed  by  thee 
swear  not  by  thy  head !  "  Or  again  (xxiii  60 
=  Wright  496),  "  Above  the  heavens,  what  is 
there,  who  doth  suffice  to  tell?  Beneath  the 
earth,  what  is  laid,  there  is  none  to  say !  The 
firmament,  upon  what  is  it  stretched  out?  or  the 
heavens,  upon  what  are  they  hung  ?  The  earth, 
on  what  is  it  pillowed  ?  or  the  deep,  in  what 
is  it  fixed  ?  We  are  of  Adam,  and  here  with 
our  senses  we  perceive  little.  Only  this  we 
know:  that  God  is  one,  and  His  Messiah  one, 
and  one  the  Spirit,  and  one  the  Faith,  and  one 
Baptism.  More  than  thus  far  it  does  not  help 
us  to  speak  ;  if  we  say  more  we  fall  short,  and 
if  we  investigate  we  are  helpless."  I  need 
hardly  remind  you  that  the  "investigation  "  which 


88  EARLY  SYRIAC  THEOLOGY 

Aphraates  has  in  mind  is  speculation  and 
empirical  analogy,  not  the  patient  and  humble 
co-ordination  of  ascertainable  facts. 

I  must  not  omit  to  point  out  one  remarkable 
feature  of  Aphraates's  doctrine  of  the  Spirit. 
When  we  speak  in  the  Creed  of  "the  Lord, 
the  Giver  of  Life,"  we  are  obliged  to  assign 
a  sex  to  the  Holy  Spirit.  We  have  to  choose 
between  Lord  and  Lady.  The  Greek  irvev/m  is  of 
course  neuter.  But  in  Semitic  languages  there 
is  no  neuter,  and  Rilh,  the  word  for  wind  or 
spirit,  is  feminine  ;  in  the  older  Syriac  literature, 
therefore,  before  the  influence  of  Greek  theology 
made  itself  felt,  the  Holy  Spirit  also  is  feminine. 
Thus  in  the  old  Syriac  version  of  John  xiv  26 
we  actually  read  The  Spirit,  the  Paraclete,  she 
shall  teach  you  everything}  Thus  it  is  only 
in  accordance  with  the  earliest  usage  that  in 
a  doxology  (xxiii  63  =  Wright  498)  Aphraates 
ascribes  "glory  and  honour  to  the  Father  and 
to  His  Son  and  to  His  Spirit,  the  living  and 
holy,"  where  living  and  holy  are  feminine 
adjectives  in  the  older  MS.  But  he  goes 
further :  it  is  not  a  question  only  of  grammatical 


1  In  the  Peshitta  she  (or  it)  is  changed  to  he.  Another  place 
where  the  feminine  seemed  too  heterodox  to  stand  is  Lk.  xii  12. 
But  in  many  passages  the  feminine  is  retained  even  in  the  Peshitta, 
e.g.  Lk.  iv  1  ;  Joh.  vii  39. 


THE   HOLY  SPIRIT  FEMININE  89 

nicety  with  Aphraates.  In  the  treatise  On 
Virginity  against  the  Jeivs  (xviii  10=  Wright 
354)  he  says:  "We  have  heard  from  the  law 
that  a  man  will  leave  his  father  and  his  mother 
and  will  cleave  to  his  wife,  and  they  will  be 
one  flesh ;  and  truly  a  prophecy  great  and 
excellent  is  this.  What  father  and  mother 
cloth  he  forsake  that  taketh  a  wife  ?  This  is 
the  meaning :  that  when  a  man  not  yet  hath 
taken  a  wife,  he  loveth  and  honoureth  God  his 
Father,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  his  Mother,  and 
he  hath  no  other  love.  But  when  a  man  taketh 
a  wife  he  forsaketh  his  Father  and  his  Mother, 
those  namely  that  are  signified  above,  and  his 
mind  is  united  with  this  world ;  and  his  mind 
and  his  heart  and  his  thought  is  dragged  away 
from  God  into  the  midst  of  the  world,  and 
he  loveth  and  cherisheth  it,  as  a  man  loveth 
the  wife  of  his  youth,  and  the  love  of  her 
is  different  from  that  of  his  Father  and  of  his 
Mother." 

We  shall  come  across  this  view  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  again  when  we  consider  the  Acts  of 
Thomas}  Here  I  must  remind  you  that  there 
is   very  early  Christian  authority  for  it.     In  the 


1  Cf.  also  Philoxenus's  Prologue,  p.  17  (E.  Trans.),  a  passage 
which  is  probably  an  echo  either  of  Aphraates  or  of  the  Hymn  of 
the  Soul  itself. 


90  EARLY  SYRIAC  THEOLOGY 

ancient  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews,  as 
quoted  by  Origen  and  S.  Jerome,  our  Lord 
Himself  speaks  of  the  Holy  Spirit  as  His 
Mother.  Origen  [in  Joann.  ii  12),  who  is 
concerned  to  show  that  all  things,  including 
the  Holy  Spirit,  came  into  existence  through 
the  Logos,  does  not  reject  this  saying  as 
"apocryphal,"  but  explains  it  away.  He  argues 
that  the  Holy  Spirit  does  the  will  of  the  Father, 
and  therefore  may  rightly  be  described  as  the 
Mother  of  Christ,  in  accordance  with  Matt,  xii 
50.  Perhaps  it  was  inevitable  that  the  thought 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  as  the  Queen  of  Heaven 
should  be  eliminated  from  Christian  theology, 
but  before  we  condemn  the  doctrine  altogether 
let  us  remember  that  the  theology  of  the  age 
which  followed  its  final  disappearance,  at  the 
bidding  of  popular  sentiment,  by  a  false  applica- 
tion of  logic  to  Divine  affairs,  degraded  the 
Christian  vocabulary  with  the  word  Gcotokos. 

To  come  back  to  Aphraates.  His  doctrine  of 
the  Person  of  Christ  is  also  very  far  removed  in 
expression  from  what  was  usual  in  later  times. 
But  just  as  Aphraates'  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  is 
nothing  new,  but  a  survival  of  one  of  the  most 
primitive  Christian  beliefs,  so  too  Homily  XVII, 
entitled  Of  the  Messiah  that  He  is  the  Son  of 
God,  is  an  echo  of  one  of  the  most  remarkable 


THE   HOMILY  ON  THE  MESSIAH  91 

sayings  in  S.  John's  Gospel.1  This  Homily, 
like  so  many  that  Aphraates  wrote,  is  directed 
against  the  Jews,  who  complained  that  Christians 
worshipped  a  man  whom  they  called  Son  of  God, 
in  defiance  of  God's  own  word  I  am  God  and 
there  is  none  beside  Me  (§  i).  Aphraates  sets 
himself  the  task  of  defending  the  Christian 
practice,  even  if  he  should  concede  to  the  Jews 
that  Jesus  whom  the  Christians  call  God  was 
only  a  man.  "  Though,"  he  continues,  "  we  do 
affirm  that  Jesus  our  Lord  is  God  the  Son  of 
God,  and  the  King  the  Son  of  the  King,  Light 
from  Lioht,  Son 2  and  Counsellor  and  Guide  and 
Way  and  Saviour  and  Shepherd  and  Gatherer 
and  Door  and  Pearl  and  Lamp  ;  and  by  many 
Names  is  He  called.  But  now  we  will  show 
that  He  is  the  Son  of  God,  and  that  He  is  God 
who  from  God  hath  come  "  (§  2).  For  the  name 
of  divinity  has  been  given  to  just  men,  as  for 
instance  to  Moses,  who  was  made  a  God  not  to 
Pharaoh  only  but  also  to  Aaron 3  (§  3) ;  and 
though  the  Jews  say  God  has  no  son,  yet  He 
called  Israel  His  First-born,*  and  Solomon   His 


1  Joh.  x  33-36.     The  Homily  is  translated  in  full  by  Dr  Gwynn 

PP-  387-392- 

2  Sic :  cf.  Isaiah  ix  6,  and  also  §  9. 

3  Exod.  vi  1  ;  vii  1. 

4  Exod.  iv  22,  23. 


02  EARLY  SYRIAC  THEOLOGY 

son.1  David  also  says  of  them  :  1  have  said,  Ye 
are  Gods  and  sons  of  the  Highest  all  of  you*  (§  4). 
God  p-ives  the  most  exalted  titles  to  whom  He 
will :  He  called  impious  Nebuchadnezzar  King 
of  Kings.  For  man  was  formed  by  Him  in  His 
own  image  to  be  a  Temple  for  Him  to  dwell  in, 
and  therefore  He  gives  to  man  honours  which 
He  denies  to  the  Sun  and  the  Moon  and  the 
host  of  Heaven3  (§§  5,  6).  Man  of  all  creatures 
was  first  conceived  in  God's  mind,4  though  he 
was  not  placed  in  the  world  till  it  was  ready  for 
him  (§  7).  Why  should  we  not  worship  Jesus, 
through  whom  we  know  God,  Jesus  who  turned 
away  our  mind  from  vain  superstitions  and  taught 
us  to  adore  the  One  God,  our  Father  and  Maker, 
and  to  serve  Him?  Is  it  not  better  to  do  this 
than  to  worship  the  kings  and  emperors  of  this 
world,  who  not  only  are  apostates  themselves 
but  drive  others  also  to  apostasy?  (§  8).  Our 
Messiah  was  spoken  of  in  the  prophets  even  to 
the  details  of  the  Crucifixion  (§§  9,  10).  We 
therefore  will  continue  to  worship  before  the 
Majesty  of  His  Father,  who  has  turned  our 
worship    unto    Him.     We    call    Him    God,    like 


1  2  Sam.  vii  14  ;  cf.  Heb.  i  5. 

2  Ps.  lxxxii  (lxxxi)  6. 

3  Deut.  iv  17. 

4  Ps.  xc  (lxxxix)  1,  2. 


THE  CHRISTOLOGY   OF  APHRAATES  93 

Moses ;  First-born  and  Son,  like  Israel ;  Jesus 
like  Joshua,  the  son  of  Nun ;  Priest,  like  Aaron  ; 
King,  like  David ;  the  great  Prophet,  like  all 
the  prophets ;  Shepherd,  like  the  shepherds 
who  tended  and  ruled  Israel.  And  us,  adds 
Aphraates,  has  He  called  Sons,  making  us  His 
Brothers,    and    we    have   become    His    Friends 

Nothing  less  than  this  full  abstract  does  justice 
to  Aphraates'  style  and  method.  It  is  surely  most 
surprising  and  instructive  to  meet  with  work 
animated  by  this  spirit  in  the  middle  of  the 
fourth  century.  It  is  not  exactly  what  we  are 
accustomed  to  read  in  the  Fathers,  but  it  follows 
too  closely  the  lines  of  our  Lord's  answer  to  the 
Jews  for  us  to  brand  it  as  unorthodox.  The 
Persian  sage  lived  outside  the  Roman  Empire 
and  was  educated  in  a  culture  but  little  touched 
by  Greek  philosophy.  He  did  not  feel  that 
necessity  for  logical  subordination,  for  the  due 
relation  of  the  parts  to  the  whole,  which  the 
Greeks  were  the  first  of  mankind  to  strive  after. 

To  me,  I  confess,  the  efforts  of  Aphraates  after 
a  tenable  Christology  evokes  a  more  sympathetic 
echo  than  the  confident  metaphysics  of  the 
"  restless  wits  of  the  Grecians,"  to  use  the  phrase 
of  Hooker.  He  seems  to  have  been  aware  that 
it  is  impossible  for   man    to  construct   a   logical 


94  EARLY  SYRIAC  THEOLOGY 

scheme  of  the  universe.  But  he  held  the  two 
main  positions  of  Christian  belief  as  strongly  as 
the  author  of  the  Quicrcnque  vult.  On  the  one 
hand,  he  was  wholly  penetrated  by  the  mono- 
theism of  the  "  Catholick  Religion  "  ;  on  the  other, 
his  loyalty  and  devotion  to  his  Lord  assured  him 
that  no  title  or  homage  was  too  exalted  for 
Christians  to  give  to  Jesus  Christ,  through  whom 
they  had  union  with  the  Divine  Nature.  It  is 
upon  the  simultaneous  holding  of  these  two 
positions  that  Christian  theology  rests,  not  upon 
the  form  in  which  they  were  co-ordinated  by 
the  metaphysical   science  of  the    Graeco- Roman 

Church. 

"  The  highest  place  that  Heav'n  affords 
Is  His,  is  His  by  right." 

This  cry  voices  the  demand  of  the  Christian 
conscience ;  it  rests  with  the  theologians  and 
the  metaphysicians  to  determine  how  Heaven 
differs  from  Olympus  or  Nirvana. 

The  importance  of  Aphraates  in  the  Christo- 
logical  Problem,  which  still,  as  M.  Loisy  has 
been  justly  reminding  us,  demands  the  serious 
consideration  of  Churchmen,1   is  that  he  shows 


1  Le  Christ  est  Dieu  pour  la  foi.  Mais  les  gens  nous  demandent 
maintenant  de  leur  expliquer  Dieu  et  le  Christ,  parce  que  nos 
definitions  sont  concues  en  partie  dans  une  autre  langue  que  la 
leur.  Une  traduction  s'impose.  Ainsi  entendu,  le  probl£me 
christologique  est  encore  actuel"  {Aittour  d'un  petit  Livre,  p.  155) 


S.  EPHRAIM  95 

us  that  it  was  possible  to  hold  the  Christian 
position  with  different  watchwords  from  those 
which  the  Church  borrowed  from  her  refractory 
sons  Tertullian  and  Origen. 

We  come  now  to  the  personage  who  of  all 
the  sons  of  the  Syriac-speaking  Church  is  best 
known  by  name  to  the  western  world.  Ephraim, 
commonly  called  Ephraem  Syrus,  died  at  Edessa 
in  the  year  373,  in  the  reign  of  the  Arian 
Emperor  Valens.  His  earlier  home  had  been 
Nisibis,  where  he  lived  until  it  was  abandoned 
to  the  Persians  in  363  by  Jovian,  after  the 
defeat  and  death  of  Julian  the  Apostate.  At 
Edessa  Ephraim  lived  as  an  anchorite  or  solitary 
in  a  cell  outside  the  city,  but  his  fame  as  an 
expositor  and  as  a  champion  against  heresy  was 
great  even  during  his  lifetime.  He  is  said  to 
have  paid  a  visit  to  S.  Basil  of  Csesarea  in 
Cappadocia,  and  to  have  been  ordained  by  him 
a  Deacon. 

What  has  given  S.  Ephraim  his  magnificent 
reputation  it  is  hard  to  say.  According  to  his 
biographer  he  is  to  be  accredited  with  the 
honour  of  having  invented  the  Controversial 
Hymn,  a  rather  melancholy  addition  to  public 
worship.  His  interest  to  modern  scholars  arises 
from  the  fact  that  a  Syriac  writer  of  the  fourth 


g6  EARLY  SYRIAC  THEOLOGY 

century,  whose  works  are  excessively  voluminous 
and  well  preserved,  cannot  help  affording  us 
many  curious  glimpses  into  the  life  and  thought 
of  the  Church  to  which  he  belongs.  But  it  is 
a  weary  task,  gleaning  the  grains  of  wheat 
among  the  chaff.  Ephraim  is  extraordinarily 
prolix,  he  repeats  himself  again  and  again,  and 
for  all  the  immense  mass  of  material  there  seems 
very  little  to  take  hold  of.  His  style  is  as 
allusive  and  unnatural  as  if  the  thought  was 
really  deep  and  subtle,  and  yet  when  the  thought 
is  unravelled  it  is  generally  commonplace.  Take 
for  instance  the  13th  of  the  Nisibene  Hymns, 
inscribed  Concerning  S.  Jacob  and  his  Com- 
panions} S.  Jacob,  it  should  be  premised, 
had  been  Bishop  of  Nisibis  ;  he  was  succeeded 
by  Babu,  and  Babu  was  succeeded  by  Walgesh 
or  Vologeses,  who  was  still  alive  when  the 
poem  was  composed. 


Three  illustrious  Priests, 

In  the  type  of  the  two  great  Lights, 

Transmitted  and  delivered  to  one  another, 

Throne  and  Hand  and  Flock  : 

To  us,  whose  grief  was  great  for  the  two, 

The  last  was  wholly  consolation. 

To  Thee  be  glory,  Who  didst  choose  them  ! 


1  Bickell's  Carmina  Nisibena,  p.  20  ;  translated  by  Gwynn,  p.  180. 


THE    NISIBENE   HYMNS  97 


II. 


He  Who  created  the  two  great  Lights, 
Chose  for  Himself  the  three  great  Lights, 
And  set  them  in  the  three 
Cloistered  darknesses  that  came  to  pass. 
When  the  pair  of  Lights  were  quenched 
The  last  was  altogether  radiant. 
To  Thee  be  glory,  &c. 

III. 

The  three  Priests  were  treasurers 
Who  held  in  their  integrity 
The  key  of  the  Trinity  ; 
Three  doors  did  they  open  to  us, 
Each  one  of  them  with  his  key 
In  his  time  1  was  opening  his  door. 
To  Thee  be  glory,  &c. 

IV. 

With  the  first  had  been  opened  the  door 

To  the  war  of  the  two  hosts, 

With  the  middle  one  had  been  opened  the  door 

To  the  Kings  of  the  two  winds, 

With  the  third  had  been  opened  the  door 

Of  the  ambassadors  of  the  two  sides. 

(From  this  stanza  the  reader  is  supposed  to 
learn  that  during  the  episcopate  of  Jacob  the 
war  broke  out  between  the  Romans  from 
the  West  and  the  Persians  on  the  East,  that 
the  war  continued  during  the  episcopate  of  Babu, 
and    that    an    armistice    was    concluded    during 


1  Read  b'zaRneh  instead  of  bazb'zeh. 

G 


98  EARLY   SYRIAC   THEOLOGY 

the  episcopate  of  Vologeses.  I  omit  a  dozen 
stanzas  similar  to  those  I  have  quoted  to  you 
and  come  to  No.  XVIII). 

XVIII. 

Nisibis  planted  on  the  waters, 
Waters  concealed  and  exposed  ! 
Living  founts  within  her, 
A  noble  river  without  her ! 
The  river  outside  deceived  her, 
The  fountain  within  preserved  her. 

XIX. 

The  first  Priest  was  her  vine-dresser, 
Her  branches  he  increased  to  the  heavens ; 
Lo,  when  dead  and  buried  within  her 
He  has  become  fruit  in  her  bosom ! 
For  all  that  the  pruners  came, 
The  fruit  within  her  kept  her  safe. 

XX. 

The  time  of  her  pruning  had  arrived, 

It  entered  and  took  away  her  vine-dresser, 

That  she  should  not  have  an  intercessor ; 

She  hasted,  and  in  her  subtlety 

Laid  in  her  bosom  her  vine-dresser, 

That  she  might  be  delivered  by  her  vine-dresser. 

XXI. 

Imitate,  ye  sensible  ones, 

Daughters  of  Nisibis,  imitate  Nisibis, 

That  laid  a  Body  within  her 

And  it  became  a  Wall  without  her  ! 

Lay  in  you  a  living  Body, 

That  it  may  be  a  Wall  for  your  life. 


THE    POETRY   OF   S.   EPHRAIM  99 

The  meaning  of  these  latter  stanzas  is  that 
S.  Jacob,  Bishop  of  Nisibis,  protected  the  city 
during  his  life  by  his  prayers,  and  that,  now 
he  was  dead  and  buried  within  the  city,  his 
relics  were  equally  efficacious  in  keeping  out 
the  Persians. 

I  have  quoted  this  specimen  of  the  poetry  of 
S.  Ephraim,  not  because  I  think  it  beautiful 
or  inspiring,  but  because  it  is  eminently  char- 
acteristic. Of  course  it  sounds  somewhat  less 
bald  in  the  original  Syriac,  because  the  original 
Syriac  is  in  metre.  But  so  far  as  I  can  see  it 
has  no  merit  either  of  simplicity  or  of  subtlety 
in  the  choice  of  words ;  the  main  thought,  the 
protection  afforded  by  the  dead  bishop's  bones, 
is  set  forth  in  the  most  unattractive  fashion. 
And  you  must  remember  that  the  whole  poem 
extends  to  twenty-one  stanzas,  of  which  I  have 
only  read  you  eight.  Judged  by  any  canons 
that  we  apply  to  religious  literature,  it  is  poor 
stuff.  We  must  therefore  remind  ourselves 
once  more  of  the  great  and  lasting  reputation 
of  the  author.  This  sort  of  thing  was  evidently 
what  the  Church  wanted  in  the  fourth  century  ; 
and  if  it  shows  a  lamentable  standard  of  public 
taste,  that  is  only  our  affair  to  the  extent  that  we 
allow  ourselves  to  be  influenced  by  the  judgments 
of  that  age  in  other  departments  of  thought. 


100  EARLY   SYRIAC   THEOLOGY 

On  one  little  matter  we  ought  to  do  S. 
Ephraim  justice.  His  humility  is  quite  genuine. 
We  have  seen  his  belief  in  the  value  of  relics. 
But  he  adjures  his  disciples  in  the  curious  piece 
known  as  his  Testament  or  Will  that  they 
should  not  bury  him  in  a  Church  under  the 
altar,  or  among  the  ancient  Martyrs  and 
Confessors,  but  that  he  should  be  laid,  wrapped 
in  his  old  cloak,  in  the  common  cemetery  among 
the  strangers. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  enter  upon  a  general 
discussion  of  the  works  of  S.  Ephraim  or  to 
examine  the  genuineness  of  the  enormous  mass 
of  material  which  has  at  various  times  been 
published  under  his  name.  But  a  word  of 
warning  on  one  point  may  not  be  out  of  place. 
I  have  already  mentioned  in  the  previous  Lecture 
that  a  good  deal  of  what  has  been  printed  as 
Ephraim's  is  not  his,  and  you  have  seen  from 
the  specimen  that  I  have  just  given  that  his 
genuine  style  does  not  readily  lend  itself  to 
precise  statements,  suitable  for  illustrating  his 
dogmatic  position.  It  is  always  therefore  most 
necessary  when  opinions  or  phrases  are  quoted 
as  S.  Ephraim's,  or  as  illustrating  the  dogmatic 
beliefs  of  his  age  and  country,  to  see  whether 
they  have  been  taken  from  works  of  undoubted 
genuineness.     As  an  example  of  what  I  mean,  I 


GENUINE   WORKS  OF   S.   EPHRAIM  IOI 

may  mention  that  of  five  quotations  intended  to 
illustrate  S.  Ephraim's  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist, 
extracted  by  the  late  Dr  Moberly  from  Dr 
Pusey's  well-known  collection,  not  one  is  taken 
from  any  of  Ephraim's  certainly  authenticated 
writings,  and  I  doubt  if  all  of  them  are,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  really  from  his  pen,1  though 
very  likely  similar  sentiments  might  be  culled 
from  his  genuine  works. 

Let  us  therefore  content  ourselves  with  the 
certainly  genuine  works  of  this  voluminous 
writer.  You  have  probably  had  already  enough 
of  his  poetry,  and  in  what  follows  I  shall  chiefly 
confine  myself  to  his  prose.  It  is  a  curious 
fact  that  S.  Ephraim  is  much  more  readable 
in  his  prose  than  in  his  verse.  We  are  not 
continually  fatigued  with  a  series  of  those 
strained  conceits  which  seem  to  have  been  as 
much  admired  by  his  contemporaries  as  the 
quaintnesses  of  Donne  and  Quarles  were  admired 
by  the  literary  world  of  the  time  of  James  I. 

The  genuine  theology  of  S.  Ephraim  is  best 
studied  from  the  work  called  Sermo  de  Domino 
nostro,  edited  by  Lamy.2  This  is,  in  fact,  a 
treatise    on    the    Incarnation,    and   extracts    from 


1  See  Journal  of  Theol.  Studies  ii,  p.  341. 

2  Lamy  i  145-274 ;  see  also  the  Preface  to  Vol.  ii.     The  Homily- 
is  translated  by  A.  E.  Johnston  in  Gwynn,  pp.  305-330. 


102  EARLY  SYRIAC  THEOLOGY 

it  are  quoted  by  later  writers  such  as  Philoxenus, 
as  from  an  acknowledged  theological  authority. 
To  the  Syrians  it  was  known  by  the  opening- 
words  :  "  Grace  hath  drawn  near  to  blaspheming 
mouths  and  hath  made  them  praise-giving  harps. 
Wherefore  let  all  mouths  give  praise  to  Him 
that  withheld  from  them  blasphemous  discourse. 
To  Thee  be  praise,  that  didst  depart  from  one 
abode  and  dwell  in  another,  to  come  and  make 
us  an  abode  for  Him  that  sent  Thee !  The 
Only-begotten  departed  from  the  Divine  Essence 
and  dwelt  in  the  Virgin,  that  by  common  birth 
the  Only-begotten  might  become  the  Brother  of 
many.  And  it  was  He  that  departed  from 
Sheol  and  dwelt  in  the  kingdom,  that  He  might 
search  out  a  way  from  Sheol  the  all-oppressing 
to  that  kingdom  which  is  all-recompensing.  For 
our  Lord  gave  His  resurrection  as  a  pledge  to 
mortal  men,  that  He  would  remove  them  from 
Sheol  that  receives  the  dead  without  distinction 
to  the  kingdom  that  admits  them  that  are 
invited  with  distinction,  that  from  the  place 
which  treats  alike  the  bodies  of  all  men  within 
it  they  may  go  to  that  which  distinguishes  the 
works  of  men  within  it."  And  again,  he  goes 
on  to  say  :  "  He,  the  First-born,  that  had  been 
born  according  to  His  own  [Divine]  Nature 
was  born  with  another,  a  [human]  birth  beyond 


THE   DISCOURSE  ON   THE   INCARNATION  103 

that  which  was  natural  to  Him,  that  we  in  our 
turn  might  know  that  after  our  natural  birth 
there  is  required  for  us  another  birth  beyond 
what  is  natural  to  us.  For  He,  as  a  spiritual 
being,  until  He  came  to  material  birth  could  not 
become  material ;  and  so  also  material  beings, 
except  they  be  born  with  another  birth,  cannot 
become  spiritual."  "Our  Lord  Himself,"  says 
Ephraim,  "  was  born  from  the  Godhead  accord- 
ing to  His  own  Nature;  He  was  born  from  man 
contrary  to  His  own  Nature  [that  is,  by  miracle]  ; 
and  He  was  born  from  Baptism  extra-ordinarily  ; 
and  the  reason  of  this  was  that  we  might  be 
born  from  man  according  to  our  nature,  and 
from  the  Godhead  contrary  to  our  nature,  and 
from  the  Spirit  extra-ordinarily."  "To  Thee 
be  praise,"  he  says  again,  "  who  didst  make  of 
Thy  Cross  a  bridge  over  Death,  that  souls  might 
pass  over  it  from  the  House  of  Death  to  the 
House  of  Life." 

In  these  extracts  you  have,  I  think,  most  of 
the  main  ideas  which  underlie  S.  Ephraim's 
treatise.  According  to  S.  Ephraim,  the  object 
of  the  Incarnation,  the  taking  of  the  Manhood 
into  God,  was  that  Christians  might  incorporate 
the  Divine  into  their  Manhood.  We  may 
notice  that  in  Ephraim's  view  the  doctrine  of 
Christ's   Nature  and  the  doctrine  of  the   Sacra- 


104  EARLY  SYRIAC  THEOLOGY 

ments  are  inextricably  intertwined.  Jesus  Christ 
receives  the  Spirit  in  baptism  that  we  may  also 
be  born  of  the  Spirit.  He  is  the  "  Drug  of 
Life "  which  Death  swallowed  !  and  could  not 
retain — in  other  words,  the  4>dpfiaKov  dOavaarias  of 
which  Ignatius  speaks  (ad  Eph.  xx) ;  thereby 
the  gates  of  Sheol  were  opened,  and  the 
patriarchs  of  the  Old  Covenant  were  liberated. 
Yet  Ephraim  also  applies  the  phrase  meta- 
phorically:  "Our  Lord,"  he  says,  "did  not 
mingle  with  the  eaters  and  drinkers  for  pleasure, 
as  the  Pharisees  supposed,  but  that  with  the 
very  food  of  mortal  men  He  might  mix  His 
teaching  as  a  Drug  of  Life." 

It  is  really  very  difficult  to  extract  from  S. 
Ephraim  any  clear  exposition  of  his  views.  He 
goes  on  from  symbol  to  symbol,  and  the  points 
he  emphasises  are  sometimes  striking,  sometimes 
preposterous,  but  always  fanciful.  "Our  Lord," 
he  says,2  "spat  on  His  fingers  and  laid  them 
in  the  ears  of  the  deaf  man  and  formed  clay 
from  His  spittle  and  smeared  it  on  the  eyes  of 
the  blind  man,  that  we  might  learn  that  by  the 
leaven  from  the  Body  of  Him  who  perfects  all 
things  hath   what  is   lacking  in  our  frame   been 


1  Lamy  i  155  ;  the  same  idea  is  elaborated  by  Aphraates  {Horn. 
xxii  =  Wright,  p.  422). 

2  Lamy  i  171  ;  cf.  Mk.  vii  33  (in  the  Diatessaron)  and  Joh.  ix  9. 


EUCHARISTIC    DOCTRINE  105 

supplied.  It  would  not  have  been  right  for  our 
Lord  to  cut  off  anything  from  His  Body  to  fill 
up  the  imperfections  of  other  bodies ;  but  it  was 
with  what  might  be  taken  without  loss  from 
Him  that  He  filled  up  the  imperfections  of  the 
imperfect,  even  as  with  what  can  be  eaten 
mortal  men  eat  Him.  Thus  He  filled  up  what 
was  lacking  and  made  alive  what  was  dead, 
that  we  might  know  that  from  the  Body  in 
which  true  Fulness  dwelt  hath  the  imperfections 
of  the  imperfect  been  filled  up,  and  from  that 
same  Body  in  which  dwelt  true  Vitality  hath 
life  been  given  to  mortal  men."  Thus  the 
Eucharistic  doctrine  taught  by  Ephraim  is  that 
to  come  into  real  contact  with  and  to  absorb 
the  Lord  brings  true  life  and  true  health  to  the 
Christian,  just  as  physical  contact  with  Him 
brought  speech  to  the  deaf  and  sight  to  the 
blind.  The  characteristic  looseness  of  Ephraim's 
diction  makes  it  always  possible  to  hold  that 
after  all  the  words  might  be  meant  of  spiritual 
feeding  and  absorbing,  but  the  nature  of  the 
comparison  of  the  Eucharistic  bread  with 
physical  spittle  makes  it  only  too  likely  that 
Ephraim  had  chiefly  in  view  the  mere  eating  of 
the  consecrated  elements. 

Another  feature   of  S.   Ephraim's    Christology 
is  his  curious  doctrine  of  what  we  may  call  the 


106  EARLY   SYRIAC   THEOLOGY 

Charismata,  the  spiritual  privileges  which  had 
been  as  it  were  lent  to  Israel  and  were  one  by- 
one  resumed  on  earth  by  the  Christ,  their  true 
Possessor.  The  early  Christian  theologians  were 
fully  convinced  of  the  validity  of  Israel's  hierarchy. 
The  Jewish  king  was  the  Lord's  Anointed,  the 
Jewish  priest  was  God's  legitimate  Minister,  the 
Jewish  prophet  was  the  mouthpiece  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  How  then  did  our  Lord  give  the  priestly 
power  to  the  disciples  ?  From  whom  had  He 
received  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  Heaven 
which  He  gave  to  S.  Peter.1  It  is  curious  to  find 
S.  Ephraim  wondering,  if  only  for  a  moment, 
whether  Orders  conferred  by  Christ  were  valid. 
The  answer  is  equally  strange.  S.  Ephraim  tells 
us  that  the  gift  of  Priesthood  was  given  to  our 
Lord  in  the  Temple  when  Simeon  took  Him  in 
his  arms,  or  rather  that  the  Lord  then  received 
back  His  own  from  Simeon,  who  having  resigned 
the  gift  which  had  been  committed  to  him  was 
ready  to  depart  in  peace.  "Thus,"  he  continues, 
"each  of  the  gifts  that  had  been  kept  for  the 
Son  did  He  gather  from  their  true  tree.  For 
He  took  away  Baptism  from  the  Jordan,  though 
John  afterwards  still  was  baptizing;  and  He  took 
the  Priesthood  from  the  Temple,  though  Hannan 
the  High  Priest  still  officiated  therein  ;  and  He 

1  The  question  is  actually  asked  in  Lamy  i  267. 


CHRIST   AND   THE   CHARISMATA  IOJ 

took  Prophecy  that  was  being  handed  down 
among  the  just,  though  Caiaphas  for  a  moment 
wove  by  means  of  it  a  crown  for  our  Lord  ;  and 
He  took  the  kingdom  from  the  house  of  David, 
even  though  Herod  had  been  made  his  vice- 
gerent. He  it  was,  even  our  Lord,  who  flew 
down  from  on  high ;  and  when  all  these  Gifts 
that  He  had  given  to  them  of  old  time  saw 
Him,  they  flew  and  came  from  every  side  and 
alighted  on  Him  their  Giver,  gathering  them- 
selves together  from  every  side  to  come  and 
engraft  themselves  on  their  true  parent  stem.  .  .  . 
But  when  our  Lord  had  taken  His  Priesthood 
from  Israel,  He  hallowed  with  it  all  nations  ;  and 
when  He  took  away  His  Prophecy,  He  revealed 
by  it  His  promises  to  all  peoples;  and  when  He 
bound  on  His  Crown  He  fettered  the  strong 
man  who  took  all  captive  and  divided  his  spoils. 
These  Gifts  were  useless  to  the  Barren  Fig-tree, 
so  barren  of  fruit  as  to  make  barren  even  endow- 
ments like  these :  wherefore  it  was  cut  down 
without  fruit,  that  these  Gifts  might  go  away 
and  bring  forth  much  fruit  in  all  nations." 

"  Moreover,"  says  Ephraim  in  conclusion, 
"from  all  local  abodes  hath  He  passed  away, 
Who  came  to  make  our  bodies  into  abodes  for 
Him  to  dwell  in.  Let  us  therefore  each  one 
of    us    become    dwelling-places,    for,    saith    He, 


108  EARLY   SYRIAC   THEOLOGY 

whoso  loveth  Me,  unto  him  will  We  come  and 
an  abode  with  him  will  We  make.  This  is  the 
Godhead,  for  which,  though  all  created  things 
do  not  contain  it,  yet  a  lowly  and  humble  mind 
doth  suffice."1 

The  touch  of  piety  and  mysticism  in  this 
informal  peroration  should  incline  us,  I  think, 
to  judge  leniently  of  S.  Ephraim's  feeble 
philosophy  and  fanciful  argumentation.  But 
the  philosophy  is  indeed  very  feeble,  and  the 
argumentation  excessively  fanciful.  Aphraates 
sometimes  makes  us  wish  that  the  Church  had 
been  content  to  retain  the  simpler  theology  of 
earlier  times ;  S.  Ephraim  shows  us  that  the 
official  expression  of  the  belief  of  the  Church 
needed  co-ordination  and  precision.  Without  the 
Creeds  I  cannot  help  fearing  that  the  theology  of 
Ephraim  might  have  led  the  Syriac-speaking 
Church  into  Tritheism.  "  Man,"  says  he,2  "  is  not 
left  defenceless.  The  Father  clothes  him  with 
armour,  the  Son  makes  him  grasp  the  shield, 
the  Spirit  helps  him  in  the  contest."  Sentences 
such  as  this  may  not  be  heretical ;  but  they  are 
worse.  They  are  rhetorical,  and  rhetoric  in 
theology  leads  direct  to  superstition.  The 
theory  of  God's  Nature  as  expressed  by  men  in 

1  The  MS.  has  'd/fdd/i  (not  'dkddn)  for  "contain." 

2  Ed.  Rom.  v  319  c. 


THE  FANCIFULNESS  OF   S.   EPHRAIM  109 

human  language  must  be  at  the  best  an  im- 
perfect presentiment,  and  the  only  value  of  the 
doctrines  of  the  Trinity  and  of  Christ's  Divine 
and  Human  Personality  is  to  help  us  less  in- 
adequately to  realise  the  relations  between 
ourselves  and  the  mysterious  Power  outside  us 
that  rules  the  world,  a  Power  which  nevertheless 
we  have  been  taught  through  Jesus  Christ  to 
call  our  Father.  Doctrines  such  as  these  are 
things  to  be  reverenced,  or  to  be  resolutely 
rejected  ;  but  for  those  who  receive  them  they 
are  not  to  be  played  with.  They  occupy  a 
department  of  thought  where  "pretty  fancies" 
are  out  of  place,  and  S.  Ephraim  is  full  of  pretty 
fancies.  At  the  beginning  of  each  of  the  six 
volumes  of  the  Roman  edition  of  his  works  is 
a  charming  copperplate  in  the  style  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  showing  the  Saint  seated 
under  a  spreading  tree,  with  little  winged  amoretti 
hastening  down  with  scrolls  of  inspiration  direct 
from  Heaven.  The  saint  receives  them  with 
humility,  while  a  couple  of  his  disciples  in  the 
background  look  on  in  astonishment  at  the 
miracle.  It  is  all  very  nice,  and  its  only  fault  is 
that  it  is  totally  unlike  the  facts  of  the  case. 
So  it  is  with  Ephraim's  theology.  It  is  out  of 
touch  with  reality ;  it  gives  us  neither  the 
historical    Christ,    nor    the    Christianity    of   the 


IIO  EARLY   SYRIAC   THEOLOGY 

early  Church,  nor  yet  the  clearly  defined  doctrines 
of  post-Nicene  times.  In  a  word,  S.  Ephraim 
represents  the  transitional  age  to  which  he 
belonged.  His  fatal  want  of  intellectual  serious- 
ness  helps  to  explain  to  us  why  his  Church 
became  strongly  orthodox  under  Rabbula,  and 
yet  sank  permanently  a  hundred  years  later  into 
heterodoxy  and  schism. 

The  intellectual  atmosphere  of  Rabbula  is 
indeed  very  different  from  that  of  S.  Ephraim. 
Both  men  were  ascetics,  but  there  the  re- 
semblance comes  to  an  end.  Rabbula  is  the 
very  incarnation  of  clear-cut  and  regulated 
ecclesiasticism.  I  do  not  know  that  I  can 
illustrate  his  position  better  than  by  the  sermon 
he  is  said  to  have  preached  at  Constantinople 
in  the  open  church  while  Nestorius  was  still 
Patriarch.1  "Two  are  the  chief  commandments, 
my  beloved  brethren,"  he  says  "those  in  which 
the  law  and  the  prophets  are  exhausted.  The 
first  is  that  thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  from 
all  thy  heart.  He  therefore  that  loveth  doth  not 
investigate  but  obeys,  and  he  doth  not  scrutinise 
but  believes.     For  not  by  words   is   God  loved 


1  Overbeck,  p.  198,  1.  21  ff.  The  quotation  is  taken  from  Overbed', 
p.  241  f.  The  sermon  itself  seems  to  have  been  delivered  in  Syriac 
(p.  241,  1.  12), 


RABBULA   AT   CONSTANTINOPLE  III 

but  by  deeds,  for  (saith  He)  He  that  loveth  Me 
keepeth  My  commandments.  The  other  of  the 
two  that  is  like  to  it  is  that  thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbour  as  thyself.  He  that  loveth  doth  not 
kill,  doth  not  steal,  doth  not  commit  adultery, 
neither  doth  he  lie  or  covet,  for  that  which  he 
doth  not  wish  to  be  done  to  him  by  anyone  he 
himself  doth  not  to  others,  but  as  he  would  that 
men  should  do  to  him,  he  also  so  doth  to  them 
seeing  that  he  loveth  them.  These  things  are 
the  profitable  doctrines  for  our  souls,  my  brethren, 
and  are  what  is  useful  for  the  building  of  the 
whole  Church  of  the  Messiah.  Wherefore  unto 
them  must  wre  direct  our  attention  at  all  times  in 
our  works,  for  these  alone  form  the  good  store 
of  our  true  righteousness."  All  this  is  quite  in 
the  style  of  Aphraates  himself.  "  But,"  continues 
Rabbula,  "because  I  know  your  ears  and  your 
attention  are  expecting  to  hear  our  word  and 
our  faith,  and  are  desirous  to  know  our  truth  in 
the  Messiah,  we  are  compelled  out  of  love  for 
you  to  speak  before  you  the  things  which  in  the 
silence  only  of  faith  should  be  honoured.  The 
inquiry,  therefore,  of  your  request  is  this : 
1  Whether  the  Virgin  Mary  be  the  Mother  of 
God  in  truth,  or  is  called  so  in  name  only,  or 
whether  she  ought  not  to  be  so  named  ? '  Now 
we,"  said  Rabbula,  "in  what  we  are  sure  of  have 


112  EARLY   SYRIAC   THEOLOGY 

hoped,  for  it  is  our  life,  and  with  confidence  we 
have  believed,  for  it  is  indeed  our  boast ;  and  we 
say  with  uplifted  voice  without  deception,  that 
Mary  is  the  Mother  of  God,  and  with  justice  her 
name  should  be  so  heralded,  for  she  became  on 
earth  Mother  to  God  the  Word  by  His  Will,1 
even  to  Him  who  according  to  the  course  of  nature 
had  no  Mother  in  heaven.  For  God  sent  His 
Son  and  He  was  born  of  a  tvoman  crieth  the 
Apostle.  Now  if  anyone  dare  to  say  that 
according  to  the  course  of  nature  she  gave  birth 
to  God  the  Word,  not  only  doth  he  not  say  well, 
but  wrongly  doth  he  make  confession.  For 
•  Mother  of  God '  we  call  the  holy  Virgin,  not 
because  according  to  the  course  of  nature  she 
gave  birth  to  the  Godhead,  but  because  God  the 
Word  was  born  from  her  when  He  became  a 
man.  For  lo,  it  saith,  the  Virgin  shall  conceive 
and  shall  bear  a  son,  and  His  name  shall  be  called 
Immanuel,  zvhich  is  interpreted '*  Our  God  with  us.' 
But  this  does  not  mean  that  from  the  blessed 
Virgin  our  Lord  obtained  His  first  beginning, 
for  the  Word  was  in  the  beginning  with  the 
Father,  as  John  testifies ;  but  that  from  her 
appeared  the  Messiah  in  the  flesh  through  His 
loving-kindness,  who  Himself  is  God  over  all 
according-  to  the  course  of  nature." 


1  Read  leh  not  Idh  in  Overbeck,  p.  242,  line  16. 


RABBULA  AND   HIS    PREDECESSORS  1 13 

This  long  extract  I  have  given  in  full,  not  to 
criticise  its  theology  from  a  modern  standpoint, 
but  to  compare  its  tone  with  what  I  have 
previously  read  from  Aphraates  and  from 
Ephraim.  I  think  you  will  all  be  sensible  of 
the  difference.  What  we  have  heard  from 
Aphraates  and  from  Ephraim  is  the  natural 
utterance  of  the  East :  what  we  have  heard  from 
Rabbula  is  the  voice  of  Greek  philosophy,  arguing, 
from  data  furnished  by  texts  taken  from  Canonical 
writings,  about  Substance  and  Nature  and  other 
figments  of  the  philosophical  mind. 

To  criticise  adequately  such  an  utterance  as 
this  of  Rabbula's  would  need  not  only  more 
philosophical  knowledge  but  also  more  sympathy 
with  the  course  of  fifth  century  controversy  than 
I  possess.  There  can,  I  venture  to  think,  be  little 
doubt  that  it  is  genuine,  for  it  accurately  represents 
the  ecclesiastical  position  of  the  great  Bishop  of 
Edessa.  That  he  should  ultimately  take  the 
anti-Nestorian  side  is  not  surprising  when  we 
read  S.  Ephraim  s  Hymns  on  the  Nativity.  But 
Rabbula  may  very  well  have  been  sincere,  when 
he  deprecated  discussion  upon  the  precise  degree 
of  honour  which  was  to  be  paid  to  the  Virgin. 
For  Rabbula  she  was  truly  Theotokos,  but  he 
would  have  preferred  not  to  discuss  the  question, 
as  the  people  of  Constantinople  were  accustomed 

H 


114  EARLY   SYRIAC   THEOLOGY 

to  discuss  such  questions,  in  the  Hippodrome  or 
in  the  Theatre,  as  interesting  points  for  disputa- 
tion. Rabbula's  mind  was  severely  practical. 
He  disapproved  of  the  Theatre  and  the  Circus, 
and  "the  disgusting  spectacle  of  wild  beasts 
shedding  human  blood  in  the  Stadium  he  alto- 
gether suppressed  by  his  authoritative  command  " 
(Life,  Overbeck,  179).  To  such  a  one  the  atmos- 
phere of  Constantinople  must  have  been  pro- 
foundly distasteful,  and  no  doubt  his  visit  confirmed 
him  in  his  opposition  to  the  then  popular  religion 
of  the  capital. 

What  Rabbula  loved  above  all  other  things 
was  Order.  The  force  of  popular  sentiment 
induced  him  to  choose  the  anti-Nestorian  side, 
but  in  either  case  he  would  have  taken  care 
to  regularise  the  ordinances  of  his  diocese. 
Practically  this  meant  the  assimilation  of  what 
he  found  in  Edessa  to  what  was  done  in 
Antioch  and  the  other  great  centres  of  the 
Greek-speaking  Church.  So  far  as  in  him 
lay  Edessa,  and  with  it  the  rest  of  Syriac- 
speaking  Christianity,  ceased  to  be  cut  off 
by  its  Bible,  its  Liturgy,  its  Doctrine,  its  party 
Watchwords,  from  the  other  Churches  of  the 
Empire. 

But  for  this  his  Church  paid  a  heavy  penalty. 
It    ceased    to    have    any    independent    life    or 


THE   GREAT  COLLAPSE  I  I  5 

thought.  From  the  fifth  century  onwards 
Syriac-speaking  Christianity  is  wholly  derivative 
and  secondary.  The  Greek  theology  does 
not  sit  well  on  the  Syriac  mind,  nor  does  it 
sound  well  in  the  Syriac  language.  Nor  again, 
as  I  have  already  remarked,  were  the  Syrians 
able  to  keep  step  with  Constantinople.  Judged 
by  the  standard  of  Chalcedonian  Orthodoxy  they 
all  fell  into  error.  Fifty  years  after  Rabbula's 
death  in  435  you  would  hardly  have  been  able 
to  find  a  Syriac-speaking  Christian  community 
which  was  in  full  communion  with  the  Byzantine 
Church.  Those  who  lived  within  the  Persian 
dominions  were  almost  all  Nestorians ;  those 
who  lived  within  the  Roman  Empire  were 
almost  all  Monophysites.  The  edifice  which 
Rabbiila  had  reared  was  ruined  in  the  hands 
of  his  successors,  and  the  external  unity  of  the 
Christian  Church  of  the  East  came  to  pieces, 
never  again  to  be  welded  together. 

In  the  next  Lecture  we  shall  consider  the 
view  of  the  Christian  Life  and  Sacraments 
which  prevailed  in  the  early  Syriac-speaking 
Church,  a  part  of  our  subject  where  far  more 
individuality  was  shown  by  the  Syrians  than  in 
the  Christological  disputes.  To-day  I  would  end 
by  quoting  to  you  the  peroration  of  S.  Ephraim's 


Il6  EARLY   SYRIAC   THEOLOGY 

Commentary  on  the  Book  of  Genesis,  a  passage 
eminently  characteristic  of  his  thought  and  style. 
It  is  orthodox,  and  yet  it  retains  in  its  doxology 
the  earlier  form  of  invocation  ;  it  is  fanciful  and 
out  of  touch  with  the  view  of  the  older  Hebrew 
literature  with  which  modern  criticism  has  made 
us  familiar,  and  yet  in  its  expression  of  a  general 
purpose  animating  ancient  history  it  forms  a  not 
undignified  conclusion  to  a  detailed  exposition. 
"Now  to  God,"  says  Ephraim  (Ed.  Rom.  iv 
115),  "Who  through  His  Son  created  all 
creatures  out  of  nothing,  and  wrote  not  this 
Book  of  Genesis  at  the  beginning,  because 
these  things  had  come  within  the  cognisance 
of  Adam,  and  each  generation  delivered  them 
to  that  which  came  after,  as  it  had  learnt  from 
that  which  had  gone  before ;  but  seeing  that 
all  had  strayed  from  God  and  God's  creative 
work  had  been  forgotten  by  all,  He  wrote  these 
things  through  Moses  for  the  people  of  the 
Hebrews  after  they  had  changed  Nature,  that 
He  might  bear  witness  to  the  creation  of  Nature 
— to  Him,  I  say,  that  wrote  in  the  desert  the 
things  that  had  been  manifested  in  the  mind  of 
Adam  while  yet  in  Paradise,  from  the  ancient 
peoples  that  without  book  had  known  these 
things,  and  from  the  intermediate  people  of 
the    Hebrews    that    through    the    book    heard 


DOXOLOGY   OF   S.   EPHRAIM  117 

and  believed  them,  and  from  us  the  latter 
peoples  that  have  entered  into  the  possession 
of  their  book,  yea,  from  those  that  yet  have 
remained  in  the  rebellion  of  their  heathen 
sacrifices,  to  Him  and  to  His  Messiah  and 
to  His  Holy  Spirit  be  glory  and  honour  now 
and  at  all  times  and  for  ever  and  ever,  Amen 
and  Amen." 


LECTURE    IV 

MARRIAGE    AND    THE    SACRAMENTS 

The  very  earliest  Christianity  was  not  ascetic. 
John  the  Baptist  had  come  in  the  way  of 
righteousness,  but  our  Lord's  way  of  life  was 
in  the  eyes  of  His  contemporaries  lax.  He 
lived  among  men  and  with  men,  and  the  call 
to  renunciation  which  He  made  upon  His 
more  immediate  followers  was  brought  out 
rather  by  the  course  of  events  than  by  the 
normal  fitness  of  things.  Sympathy  with  the 
poor  and  abstinence  from  selfish  anxiety  was 
always  the  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ,  but  the 
wickedness  of  enjoyment  in  itself  was  not  part 
of  His  Gospel ;  His  Beatitude  is  "  Blessed 
are  the  hungry,"  not  "  Blessed  are  the  fasting." 

The  opposition  between  the  Galilean  Prophet 
and  the  leaders  of  the  Jewish  world,  both  political 
and  religious,  grew  rapidly  more  acute,  and  it 
was  with  the  certainty  of  temporal  failure  that 
our  Lord  went  up  to  His  last  Passover  at 
Jerusalem.     He   was   profoundly   unwilling   that 


CHRIST   AND   ASCETICISM  I  19 

any  one  of  His  followers  should  accompany  Him 
without  counting  the  cost.  It  was  to  no  earthly 
triumph  that  He  was  leading  them,  and  so  He 
tells  them  again  and  again  on  the  journey  that 
those  who  come  with  Him  must  be  prepared  to 
lose  everything.  Yet  even  on  this  journey  His 
first  reply  to  the  rich  young  man  who  asked 
what  he  ought  to  do,  was  simply  that  he  should 
keep  the  Ten  Commandments  ;  in  other  words, 
our  Lord's  general  counsels  remained  what  they 
had  always  been.  He  was  willing  further  to  accept 
the  young  man  as  a  personal  follower  if  he  felt  him- 
self equal  to  the  strain,  but  wealth  and  respectability 
were  at  that  crisis  useless  encumbrances. 

It  is  quite  in  accordance  with  all  this  that  we 
find  Jesus  asserting  at  this  very  same  time  the 
inviolability  of  marriage,  and  that  among  all  the 
many  possessions  which  the  disciples  are  praised 
for  having  cheerfully  forsaken — house,  brethren, 
sisters,  mother,  father,  children,  lands, — the  wife 
is  conspicuously  absent.1  Grant  that  the  Wife  is 
practically  implied  in  the  House,  the  fact  remains 
that  according  to  the  earliest  Gospel  and  the 
best  authority  our  Lord  deliberately  refrained 
from  praising  a  man  for  forsaking  his  wife,  even 
to  follow  Him. 


1  Both  in  Mark  x  29  and  Matt,  xix   29  the   evidence   for  the 
omission  of  ^  ywatKa  is  overwhelming. 


120  MARRIAGE   AND   THE   SACRAMENTS 

A  very  different  tendency  soon  showed  itself 
in  parts  at  least  of  the  Christian  community. 
The  married  state  was  thought  of  as  being 
incompatible  with  the  highest  life,  and  this  view 
actually  shows  itself  in  the  form  of  words  ascribed 
to  Christ.  This  is  quite  markedly  the  case  in 
the  Gospel  according  to  S.  Luke.  In  this 
Gospel  the  words  "or  wife"  is  supplied  after 
"house,"1  and  the  reply  of  Jesus  to  the 
Sadducees  is  so  worded  as  to  make  it  appear 
that  those  that  are  worthy  to  attain  the  resurrec- 
tion from  the  dead  do  not  marry  like  the  ordinary 
inhabitants  of  this  world.  According  to  S.  Mark 
our  Lord  says  "when  they  shall  rise  from  the 
dead  they  neither  marry  nor  are  given  in 
marriage,"  but  in  S.  Luke  the  words  of  the 
answer  are:  "The  sons  of  this  world  marry 
and  are  given  in  marriage ;  but  they  that  are 
accounted  worthy  to  attain  to  that  world  and  the 
resurrection  from  the  dead  neither  marry  nor 
are  given  in  marriage."2 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  S.  Luke  to  Aphraates,  a 
gap  of  some  two  hundred  and  forty  years.  But 
after  all  the  writings  of  Aphraates  form  the  earliest 
Syriac   authority  of  any  considerable   extent,   of 


1  Luke  xviii  29. 

a  Luke  xx  34,  35  ;  cf.  Luke  xvi  8.      In  this  Gospel  the  Resurrec- 
tion is  only  a  "resurrection  of  the  just"  (Luke  xiv  14). 


THE   CHURCH    OF   APHRAATES  121 

which  we  know  the  date  and  can  trust  the 
authenticity.  It  will  be  convenient,  therefore, 
to  begin  with  Aphraates  once  more,  and  work 
backwards  and  forwards  from  him. 

The  Church  of  which  Aphraates  was  a  leader 
offered  many  features  which  to  us  are  quite 
familiar.  It  had  Bishops,  Priests  and  Deacons. 
Much  of  the  teaching  which  we  find  in  Aphraates 
about  the  Sacraments  is  just  what  might  have 
been  expected  from  a  leading  ecclesiastic  of  the 
fourth  century.  But  this  cannot  be  said  of 
everything  that  we  find  in  his  writings.  As  in 
the  case  of  his  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  and  of 
the  person  of  Christ,  it  is  not  so  much  the 
orthodoxy  or  the  heterodoxy  as  the  independence 
of  Aphraates  which  strikes  the  modern  reader. 
The  good  bishop  goes  on  in  his  easy  simple 
style  with  a  tone  of  assured  authority  and  un- 
consciousness of  serious  opposition,  and  it  is 
only  when  we  pause  and  try  to  fit  his  utterances 
into  the  schemes  of  doctrine  and  practice  with 
which  we  are  familiar  that  we  realise  that  we 
are  moving  in  another  world.  The  Church  of 
Aphraates,  like  the  Church  of  S.  Athanasius,  is 
the  legitimate  child  of  second  century  Christianity, 
but  it  has  come  by  another  line  of  descent,  and 
the  cousins  have  not  all  things  in  common. 

With  regard  to  the  Lord's  Supper  Aphraates 


122  MARRIAGE   AND   THE   SACRAMENTS 

tells  us  that  in  the  Eucharist  the  faithful  partake 
of  the  Body  and  Blood  of  the  Christ.  It  must 
be  taken  fasting,  and  the  fast  must  be  such  as 
was  once  for  all  prescribed  by  Isaiah,  "for  always 
is  fasting  from  evil  things  better  than  fasting 
from  bread  and  water."1  The  fasting  of  Abel 
and  Enoch,  of  innocent  Noah,  of  faithful 
Abraham,  of  unrevengeful  Joseph  are  to  be  our 
models.  "If  purity  of  heart  be  absent,  the  fast 
is  not  accepted.  And  remember  and  see,  my 
beloved,  that  it  is  well  that  a  man  should  cleanse 
his  heart  and  keep  his  tongue  and  cleanse  his 
hands  of  evil ;  for  it  is  not  fitting  to  mix  honey 
and  wormwood.  For  if  a  man  would  fast  from 
bread  and  water,  let  him  not  mix  with  his  fasting 
abuse  and  curses.  Thou  hast  but  one  door  to 
thy  house,  that  house  which  is  a  Temple  of 
God ;  it  doth  not  beseem  thee,  O  man,  that  by 
the  door  where  the  King  doth  enter  in  should 
come  forth  filth  and  dirt !  For  when  a  man  will 
fast  from  all  that  is  abominable  and  will  take 
the  Body  and  Blood  of  the  Messiah,  let  him 
take  heed  to  his  mouth  whereby  the  King's 
Son  doth  enter  in.  Thou  hast  no  right,  O  man, 
through  that  same  mouth  to  give  out  unclean 
words !  Hear  what  our  Saviour  saith :  That 
which  entereth  into  a  man  doth  not  defile  him; 
1  m  8. 


EUCHARISTIC   DOCTRINE   IN    APITRAATES  1 23 

but  that  which  comet h  forth  from  the  mouth, 
that  defileth  him." '  The  fast  here  prescribed 
is  metaphorical,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
Aphraates  teaches  the  doctrine  that  Jesus  Christ 
is  really  present  in  the  consecrated  elements. 

The  view  of  the  Eucharist  taken  by  Aphraates 
may  further  be  illustrated  from  his  singular  and 
fanciful  explanation  of  the  three  days  and  three 
nights  among  the  dead  which  our  Lord  had 
predicted  for  Himself.  In  the  discourse  on  the 
Passover2  he  says  that  our  Lord  gave  His  Body 
and  Blood  to  the  disciples  at  the  Last  Supper. 
But,  he  argues,  he  whose  body  is  eaten3  and 
blood  drunk  must  be  already  counted  among 
the  dead.  The  three  days  and  three  nights  are 
to  be  reckoned  from  the  time  of  the  Supper, 
and,  as  Aphraates  puts  the  three  hours'  darkness 
as  one  whole  night  and  the  ensuing  time  of  light 
on  Good  Friday  afternoon  as  one  whole  day, 
he  has  no  difficulty  in  making  up  the  required 
number.  Thus  Christ  both  celebrates  the  Jewish 
Passover  with  His  disciples  and  is  yet  Himself 
the  Paschal  Lamb.  Moreover,  adds  Aphraates, 
this  is    why  He  kept  silence   before    Pilate   and 


1  in  1. 

2  xii  6,  7. 

3  In  xii  9  (Wright,  p.  222,  line  3)  we  must  read  'axit:  the  MS. 
has  'exal  (or  'JxM)- 


124  MARRIAGE   AND   THE   SACRAMENTS 

the  Jews,  for  it  was  not  fitting  that  one  who  is 
counted  among  the  dead  should  speak.  These 
things,  however,  belong  to  the  curiosities  of 
exegesis.  Their  chief  bearing  upon  the  history 
of  Christian  Doctrine  is  that  this  whole  chain  of 
fanciful  reasoning  assumes  quite  crudely  the  real 
presence  of  Christ  in  what  He  gave  to  the 
Twelve  at  the  Supper. 

But  it  is  in  the  theory  of  Baptism  as  held 
by  Aphraates  that  we  come  definitely  in  touch 
with  the  view  of  Christian  life  to  which  I 
referred  at  the  beginning  of  this  Lecture. 
The  majority  of  the  references  to  Baptism 
in  Aphraates  contain  little  that  is  startling. 
Christian  baptism  is  the  true  circumcision  ; !  it 
is  administered  in  the  Names  of  the  Three 
Persons  of  the  Trinity  ; 2  by  baptism  regenera- 
tion is  conferred,  sins  are  washed  away,3  and 
the  body  is  preserved  in  the  Day  of  Judgment.4 
"From  baptism  do  we  receive  the  Spirit  of  the 
Messiah.  For  in  the  same  hour  that  the 
priests  invoke  the  Spirit,  the  heavens  open  and 
it  cometh  down  and  broodeth  upon  the  waters, 
and  they  that  are  baptized  are  clothed  with  it. 
For   from   all   that   are    born   of   the    body    the 


1  xii  9.  2  xxiii  63:  see  above,  p.  87. 

3  IV  19.  4  vi  14. 


BAPTISM    FOR   CELIBATES  ONLY  1 25 

Spirit  is  far  away,  until  they  come  to  the 
Birth  by  water,  and  then  they  receive  the  Holy 
Spirit."1  In  accordance  with  ancient  custom  the 
rite  of  baptism  is  performed  at  Easter.2 

All  this  is  normal  and  regular,  almost  common- 
place. It  is  when  we  go  on  to  inquire  who 
were  the  recipients  of  baptism  that  we  find 
ourselves  in  another  world.  In  Aphraates, 
Baptism  is  not  the  common  seal  of  every 
Christian's  faith,  but  a  privilege  reserved  for 
celibates. 

The  passage  where  this  amazing  view  is  most 
clearly  enforced  is  so  important  for  our  under- 
standing of  early  oriental  Christianity  that  I 
give  it  at  length.  In  the  Discourse  on  Penitents, 
after  reciting  the  story  of  Gideon,  who  prefigured 
the  mystery  of  Baptism  when  by  the  trial  of 
water  he  picked  out  his  three  hundred  from 
ten  thousand  men,  and  after  quoting  our  Lord's 
words  that  many  are  called  but  few  chosen, 
Aphraates  goes  on  to  say:3  "Wherefore  thus 
should  the  trumpeters,  the  heralds  of  the  Church 
cry  and  warn  all  the  Society  of  God  before  the 
Baptism — them,  I  say,  that  have  offered  them- 
selves for  virginity  and  for  holiness,  youths  and 
maidens    holy  —  them    shall    the    heralds    warn. 


1  vi  14  :    cf.  Gwynn,  p.  371.  -  xn  13. 

3  VII  20  (  Wright,  p.  147  f.). 


126  MARRIAGE  AND  THE  SACRAMENTS 

And  they  shall  say :  'He  whose  heart  is  set 
to  the  state  of  matrimony,  let  him  marry  before 
baptism,  lest  he  fall  in  the  spiritual  contest  and 
be  killed.  And  he  that  feareth  this  part  of  the 
struggle,  let  him  turn  back,  lest  he  break  his 
brother's  heart  like  his  own.  He  also  that 
loveth  his  possessions  let  him  turn  back  from 
the  army,  lest  when  the  battle  shall  wax  too 
fierce  for  him  he  remember  his  property  and 
turn  back,  and  he  that  turneth  back  then  is 
covered  with  disgrace.  He  that  hath  not  offered 
himself  and  hath  not  yet  put  on  his  armour,  if 
he  turn  back  he  is  not  blamed ;  but  every  one 
that  offereth  himself  and  putteth  on  his  armour, 
if  he  turn  back  from  the  contest  becometh  a 
laughing-stock.' " 

This  is  a  strange  exhortation,  strange  at  least 
to  us  Westerns.  Perhaps  it  was  not  so  much 
Constantine's  fault  as  the  fault  of  his  spiritual 
advisers  that  his  famous  baptism  was  so  long 
delayed.  Those  who  are  not  yet  baptized  are 
not  blamed  by  Aphraates  ;  if  they  wish  to  marry, 
let  them  do  so,  but  in  that  case  they  must  not 
volunteer  for  the  sacramental  life. 

The  deliberate  reservation  of  baptism  for  the 
spiritual  aristocracy  of  Christendom  shows  us 
that  we  are  dealing  with  a  view  of  the  sacraments 
quite    other    than    the    Catholic    view.      For    it 


THE  CHRISTIAN   COMMUNITY   CELIBATE  127 

is  not  merely  a  question  of  the  theoretical  exalta- 
tion of  the  celibate  above  the  married  state, 
or  an  exhortation  to  a  superior  morality,  as 
some  critics  of  mine  suggested  when  I  first 
drew  attention  to  the  doctrinal  importance  of 
the  passage  in  the  little  book  called  Early 
Christianity  outside  the  Roman  Empire}  The 
important  thing  is  that  people  who  intend  to 
marry  are  warned  off  from  receiving  baptism 
and  are  actually  recommended  to  go  away  and 
sow  their  wild  oats,  because  the  married  life 
and  the  life  of  the  baptized  Christian  are  quite 
incompatible  !  The  Christian  community,  there- 
fore, according  to  Aphraates,  consists  of  baptized 
celibates,  together  with  a  body  of  adherents 
who  remain  outside  and  are  not  really  members 
of  the  body. 

However  clear  the  meaning  of  the  passage 
from  the  Discourse  on  Penitents  may  be,  I 
can  hardly  expect  it  to  be  estimated  at  its  full 
weight  without  supporting  this  strange  conception 
of  the  Church  from  other  Syriac  sources.  To 
do  this,  it  will  first  be  necessary  to  come  to 
a  clear  view  of  the  meaning  of  a  term  which 
very  often  occurs  in  Syriac  ecclesiastical  literature. 


1  P.  51.  Nearly  the  whole  of  the  first  part  of  this  Lecture  will 
be  found  there,  and  I  have  not  seen  any  reason  to  change  my  views 
on  the  subject. 


128  MARRIAGE   AND   THE   SACRAMENTS 

This  term  is  bar  Q'ydmd,  literally  "  Son  of  the 
Covenant "  (or,  "  Son  of  a  Covenant "),  but 
generally  rendered  by  "  Monk."  We  shall  not 
gain  any  accurate  idea  of  the  early  Syriac 
Christian  Church  until  we  trace  somewhat 
precisely  what  was  at  various  times  denoted 
by  bar  Q'ydmd. 

The  Syriac  language  is  quite  rich  in  words 
for  monks  and  nuns.  For  "coenobite,"  i.e.  a 
monk  who  lives  in  a  religious  community,  we 
have  dayrdyd,  a  word  regularly  formed  from 
dayrd,  "monastery."  For  "eremite"  or  "soli- 
tary" we  have  iMsdyd.  For  "anchorite"  or 
"recluse"  we  have  k'pishd  and  kfiishdyd.  A 
"  Stylite,"  like  the  famous  Simeon,  was  called 
estondyd  or  estondrd.  And  there  are  naturally 
the  corresponding  terms  in  the  feminine,  to 
denote  the  various  kinds  of  nuns.  With  all 
this  wealth  of  nomenclature  it  is  antecedently 
probable  that  bar  Q'ydmd,  and  in  the  feminine 
bath  Q'ydmd,  must  not  simply  mean  "monk" 
and  "nun,"  but  must  have  a  more  definite  and 
specialised  meaning. 

The  first  answer  that  may  be  given,  to  diverge 
for  a  moment  into  a  brief  etymological  discussion, 
is  that  bar  Q'ydmd  is  a  Canon  or  Regular,  i.e.  a 
Christian  who  lives  under  a  special  Rule,  such  as 
the  Rule  of  S.  Basil  or  of  S.  Benedict.     Thus  we 


THE  SONS  OF  THE    COVENANT  1 20 

find  in  the  Syriac  translation  of  the  15th  decree 
of  the  Synod  of  Laodicsea  that  b'nai  Q'ydmd  (the 
plural  of  bar  Q'ydmd)  corresponds  to  k<xvovlkoI 
in  the  Greek.  This  is  very  good  so  far  as  it 
goes,  but  it  does  not  answer  the  real  question. 
For  we  shall  have  to  go  on  and  ask :  Who 
were  the  Regulars  of  the  early  Syriac  Church  ? 
Under  what  rule  did  they  live  ? 

The  answer  to  these  questions  I  believe  to  be 
very  simple.  I  believe  the  B'nai  Q'ydmd  were 
simply  the  baptized  laity  of  the  early  Syriac- 
speaking  Church,  and  that  in  the  earlier  stages 
of  that  Church's  development  no  layman  was 
accepted  for  baptism  unless  he  was  prepared  to 
lead  a  life  of  strict  continence  and  freedom 
from  worldly  cares.  This  meant  that,  except 
for  the  more  or  less  exceptional  case  of  young 
devotees  who  felt  they  had  a  "vocation,"  the 
average  Christian  looked  forward  to  becoming  a  full 
Church  member  only  at  a  somewhat  advanced 
age,  and  as  a  prelude  to  retiring  morally  and 
physically  from  the  life  of  this  world. 

At  a  later  period  the  theory  of  the  Christian 
life  changed.  When  Christianity  was  no  longer 
a  proscribed  sect  but  had  become  in  one  form 
or  another  the  State  religion,  the  mass  of  the 
adherents  of  the  Church  wished  to  make  the 
best   of    both    worlds.      They    were    anxious    to 

1 


130  MARRIAGE   AND  THE   SACRAMENTS 

obtain  the  benefits  of  baptism  all  their  lives. 
Parents  also  had  their  children  baptized  in 
infancy,  for  whom  by  reason  of  their  age 
special  vows  were  inappropriate.  Thus  a 
Christian  community  sprang  into  existence,  of 
which  by  far  the  greater  number,  both  of  old 
and  young,  were  actually  baptized,  though  only 
a  minority  were  specially  addicted  to  religion 
in  the  modern  sense  of  the  term.  The  old- 
fashioned  B'nai  Q'ydmd  still  continued,  but  they 
now  became  a  sort  of  monastic  order  in  the 
community,  instead  of  the  community  itself. 
Living  as  they  did  among  ordinary  human 
beings,  and  not  like  the  Hermits  in  the  desert 
or  the  Ccenobites  in  a  separate  society,  it  be- 
came the  duty  of  bishops  like  Rabbula  to  devise 
rules  for  the  regulation  of  their  course  of  life. 

I  propose  now  to  illustrate  these  statements 
from  Syriac  documents  of  various  kinds.  Let 
us  begin  with  the  Doctrine  of  Adda?,  a  work 
which,  as  we  saw  in  the  first  of  these  Lectures, 
cannot  be  used  as  an  accurate  narrative  of 
historical  events,  but  can  at  least  be  taken  as 
giving  an  ideal  picture  of  the  early  Christian 
community  at  Edessa.  In  the  Doctrine  of  Addai, 
then,  we   read  (p.  47)  that  "all  the  Society1  of 

1  In  Syriac  Q'ydmd.     Dr  Phillips  translates  the  word  "chiefs," 
but  without  authority. 


SHAMONA  AND   GURIA  131 

men  and  of  women  were  modest  and  decorous, 
and  they  were  holy  and  pure  and  singly  and 
modestly  were  they  dwelling  without  spot,  in 
the  watchfulness  of  the  ministry  decorously,  in 
their  care  for  the  poor,  in  their  visitations  for 
the  sick."  In  the  ideal  picture  drawn  of  the 
Church  in  the  time  of  Addai  the  Apostle  we 
hear  nothing  of  any  provision  for  young 
Christian  children,  nothing  of  the  duties  of 
Christian  parents,  no  provision  for  Christian 
schools. 

The  next  document  we  come  to  is  the 
Martyrdom  of  Shamona  and  Gnria.  We  have 
seen  that  this  document,  which  belongs  to 
the  year  297,  is  really  the  earliest  historical 
narrative  relating  to  the  Syriac  Church  which 
has  come  down  to  us  in  approximately  its 
original  form.  As  such  it  is  particularly  interest- 
ing, and  all  the  more  so  since  the  whole  action 
takes  place  before  the  Edicts  of  Toleration  and 
the  accession  of  Constantine.  In  the  very  first 
sentence  of  this  work  we  meet  with  the  B'ndth 
Q'ydmd,  the  "  Daughters  of  the  Covenant." 
We  read  that  "  in  the  days  of  Qona,  Bishop 
of  Edessa,  the  wicked  Diocletian  had  made  a 
great  and  strong  persecution  against  all  the 
Churches  of  the  Messiah,  so  that  the  priests 
and      deacons      with      bitter      afflictions      were 


I32  MARRIAGE  AND  THE  SACRAMENTS 

tormented,  and  the  b'ndth  Q'ydmd  and  the 
cloistered  nuns1  in  bitter  exposure  were  stand- 
ing, and  all  the  Christians  were  in  affliction  and 
grief." 

The  Martyrdom  goes  on  to  tell  how  Guria 
and  Shamona  were  arrested,  and  how  valiantly 
they  confessed  and  were  martyred.  Guria  was 
from  Sargi,  and  Shamona  from  Gannada  or 
Gagnada,  both  apparently  names  of  villages 
near  Edessa.  Shamona  is  merely  introduced  as 
the  friend  or  companion  of  Guria,  but  Guria  is 
further  distinguished  by  the  epithet  ni'q  add' slid 
i.e.  "hallowed."  Holy  is  used  again  and  again 
for  continent  in  Syriac  ecclesiastical  literature. 
Before  the  martyrdom,  therefore,  Guria  was 
regarded  as  in  some  way  more  holy  than 
Shamona,  and  what  that  way  was  we  learn  at 
the  end  of  the  story  after  their  execution. 
There  it  is  casually  mentioned  that  Shamona 
had  a  daughter.  Thus  the  ascetic  sentiment 
is  indicated  most  clearly  :  Guria,  the  celibate,  is 
"holy,"  Shamona,  who  has  a  daughter,  is  not. 

We  now  come  to  Aphraates  himself.  He  has 
a  whole  Discourse  (No.  VI)  on  the  B'nai  Q'ydmd, 
and  the  position  it  occupies  in  the  series  of 
Discourses     is     significant.       First     come     the 


1  Syriac  DayrdydOd  :  these  do  not  appear  in  the  Armenian  version 
of  the  Martyrdom  and  perhaps  should  be  omitted. 


APHRAATES  133 

Discourses  on  the  primary  duties  of  Faith, 
Love,  Fasting,  and  Prayer.  Then  a  Discourse 
on  the  burning  question  of  the  great  war 
between  Rome  and  Persia  then  raging,  a  war 
which  seemed  as  if  it  were  actually  ushering 
in  the  last  times.  Then  come  two  Discourses 
on  the  Christian  Community,  followed  up  by 
three  short  Discourses  on  the  Resurrection,  on 
Humility,  and  a  final  address  "to  Pastors,'' 
which  is  really  a  kind  of  peroration  to  the  First 
Book  of  Aphraates.  The  Christian  Community 
is  divided  by  Aphraates  for  practical  purposes  into 
two  parts,  the  B'nai  Q'ydmd  and  the  Penitents. 
And  as  far  as  I  can  see,  these  correspond  to 
the  Baptized  and  the  Catechumens. 

Aphraates  begins  without  preamble  by  a 
general  exhortation  to  the  Christian  life 
addressed  to  those  who  have  "taken  up  the 
yoke  of  the  Saints."  He  reminds  them  that 
the  Adversary  is  skilful,  but  he  says:1  "All  the 
children  of  Light  are  without  fear  of  him, 
because  the  darkness  flies  from  before  the  light. 
The  children  of  the  Good  fear  not  the  Evil 
One,  for  He  hath  given  him  to  be  trampled 
by  their  feet.  When  he  makes  himself  like 
darkness    unto    them    they    become    light ;    and 


1  Wright,  p.  108  ;  Giuyttn,  p.  365,  where  the  whole  Discourse  is 
translated. 


134  MARRIAGE  AND  THE  SACRAMENTS 

when  he  creeps  upon  them  like  a  serpent,  they 
become  salt,  whereof  he  cannot  eat.1  .  .  .  If  he 
comes  in  upon  them  in  the  lust  of  food,  they 
conquer  him  by  fasting  like  our  Saviour.  And 
if  he  wishes  to  contend  with  them  by  the  lust 
of  the  eyes,  they  lift  up  their  eyes  to  the  height 
of  heaven.  ...  If  he  wishes  to  come  against 
them  by  sleep,  they  are  wakeful  and  vigilant  and 
sing  psalms  and  pray.  If  he  allures  them  by 
possessions,  they  give  them  to  the  poor.  If  he 
comes  in  as  sweetness  against  them,  they  taste 
it  not,  knowing  that  he  is  bitter.  If  he  inflames 
them  with  the  desire  of  Eve,  they  dwell  alone 
and  not  with  the  daughters  of  Eve."2 

Then  follows  a  list  of  the  mischief  that  the 
Bible  tells  us  has  been  done  by  Eve  and  her 
daughters.  Aphraates  reminds  us  in  a  passage 
which  I  quote  because  it  is  so  characteristic  of 
his  style  that  "it  was  through  Eve  that  Satan 
came  in  upon  Adam,  and  Adam  was  enticed 
because  of  his  inexperience.  And  again  he 
came  in  against  Joseph  through  his  master's 
wife,  but  Joseph  was  acquainted  with  his 
craftiness  and  would  not  afford  him  a  hearing. 
Through  a  woman  he  fought  with  Samson  until 
he    took   away   his    Nazariteship.     Reuben    was 

1  This  fanciful  comparison  occurs  several  times  in  Aphraates. 

2  P.  36s- 


AHIRAATES  1 35 

the  first-born  of  all  his  brethren,  and  through 
his  father's  wife  the  adversary  cast  a  blemish 
upon  him.  Aaron  was  the  great  high-priest  of 
the  House  of  Israel,  and  through  Miriam  his 
sister  he  envied  Moses.  Moses  was  sent  to 
deliver  the  people  from  Egypt,  and  he  took 
with  him  the  woman  who  advised  him  to 
shameful  acts,  and  the  Lord  met  with  Moses 
and  desired  to  slay  him,  till  he  sent  back  his 
wife  to  Midian.  David  was  victorious  in  all 
his  battles,  yet  by  means  of  a  daughter  of  Eve 
there  was  found  a  blemish  in  him.  Amnon  was 
beautiful  and  fair  in  countenance,  yet  the 
adversary  took  him  captive  by  desire  for  his 
sister,  and  Absalom  slew  him  on  account  of 
the  humbling  of  Tamar.  Solomon  was  greater 
than  all  the  kings  of  the  earth,  yet  in  the 
days  of  his  old  age  his  wives  led  him  astray. 
Through  Jezebel,  daughter  of  Ethbaal,  the 
wickedness  of  Akab  was  increased  and  he 
became  exceedingly  polluted.  Furthermore  the 
adversary  tempted  Job  through  his  children 
and  his  possessions,  and  when  he  could  not 
prevail  over  him  he  went  and  brought  against 
him  his  panoply,  and  he  came  bringing  with 
him  a  daughter  of  Eve  who  had  caused  Adam 
to  sink,  and  through  her  mouth  he  said  to 
Job,    her   righteous    husband,    Curse    God.     But 


136  MARRIAGE  AND  THE  SACRAMENTS 

Job  rejected  her  counsel.  King  Asa  also 
conquered  the  Accursed-of-life,  when  he  wished 
to  come  in  against  him  through  his  mother. 
For  Asa  knew  his  craftiness  and  removed  his 
mother  from  her  high  estate  and  cut  in  pieces 
her  idol  and  cast  it  down.  John  was  greater  than 
all  the  prophets,  yet  Herod  slew  him  because 
of  the  dancing  of  a  daughter  of  Eve.  Haman 
was  wealthy  and  third  in  honour  from  the  king, 
yet  his  wife  counselled  him  to  destroy  the  Jews. 
Zimri  was  head  of  the  tribe  of  Simeon,  yet  Cozbi, 
daughter  of  the  chiefs  of  Midian,  overthrew  him, 
and  because  of  one  woman  twenty-four  thousand 
of  Israel  fell  in  one  day." 

After  this  lengthy  catalogue  Aphraates  goes 
on  to  say  :l  "Therefore  my  brethren,  every  man 
that  is  a  bar  Q'ydmd  or  a  saint  that  loves  the 
solitary  life,  and  at  the  same  time  wishes  that  a 
woman  that  is  a  bath  Q'ydmd  like  himself  should 
dwell  with  him,  in  that  case  it  were  better  for  him 
to  take  a  wife  openly  and  not  wanton  in  lust ; 
and  a  woman  also  in  that  case  it  behoves  her, 
if  she  depart  not  from  a  man  who  is  a  solitary, 
that  openly  she  be  taken  to  wife.  Woman  with 
woman  ought  to  dwell,  and  man  with  man  should 
dwell.  And  the  man  too  that  wishes  to  be  in 
holiness,  let  not  his  wife  dwell  with  him,  lest  he 

1  Cwynn,  p.  366  ;  Wright^  p.  ill. 


APHRAATES  137 

turn  back  to  his  former  nature  and  be  accounted  an 
adulterer.  Wherefore  this  counsel  is  proper  and 
right  and  fair  which  I  counsel  unto  myself  and 
also  to  you,  my  beloved,  solitaries  that  take  no 
wives  and  virgins  that  are  not  taken  to  wife  and 
they  that  love  holiness  ;  it  is  just  and  right  and 
proper  that  even  if  a  man  be  in  distress  he 
should  be  by  himself,  and  so  it  becometh  him  to 
dwell  as  is  written  in  Jeremiah  the  prophet: 
Blessed  is  the  man  that  shall  bear  Thy  yoke  in 
his  youth,  and  shall  sit  by  himself  and  keep  silence 
because  he  hath  received  Thy  yoke}  For  so,  my 
beloved,  it  becometh  him  that  beareth  the  yoke 
of  the  Messiah  that  he  should  keep  His  yoke  in 
purity." 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  add  that  in  this 
"taking  to  wife"  and  "being  taken  to  wife" 
no  religious  service  is  implied.  There  was  no 
sacrament  of  Holy  Matrimony  in  Aphraates' 
religious  system.  In  the  Introduction  to  Dom 
Parisot's  edition  of  Aphraates  the  learned 
Benedictine  finds  traces  of  all  the  Catholic 
sacraments  except  this  one.  The  omission  is 
not  accidental.  I  venture  to  think  Aphraates 
would  have  considered  a  marriage  service  as 
irrational  and  unseemly  as  a  Sacrament  of  Usury 
or  of  Military  Service.  He  only  recognises  two 
1  Lam.  iii  27,  28. 


138  MARRIAGE  AND  THE  SACRAMENTS 

grades    in    the    Christian    ranks,     the    baptized 
celibate   (from  whose  ranks  also   the   clergy  are 
drawn)  and  the  unbaptized  penitent.     "  By  the 
coming   of  the  offspring  of  the   Blessed    Mary," 
he  goes  on  to  say,1  "the  thorns  are  uprooted  and 
the  sweat   taken   away,   and  the   fig-tree  cursed 
and  the  dust  made  salt,  and  the  curse  is  nailed 
to  the  Cross,  and  the  edge   of  the   sword  taken 
away   from    before    the   Tree   of   Life   and   food 
given   to  the  faithful  and   Paradise   promised   to 
the   blessed  and  to   virgins  and    saints,  and    the 
fruits  of  the   Tree  of  Life  are  given  as  food  to 
the  faithful  and  to  the  virgins  and  to  those  that 
do  the  will  of  God.  .  .  .   For  those  that  do  not 
take   wives  are  ministered  by   the   Watchers  of 
Heaven ;    those   that   keep  holiness   rest    in    the 
sanctuary    of  the  Most   High;  all  the    solitaries 
doth  the  Only  One  from  the  bosom  of  His  Father 
make  to  rejoice.     There    is    there    neither   male 
nor   female,    neither   bond    nor   free,    but   all    of 
them  are  sons  of  the  Most  High.     And  all  the 
pure   virgins    that    have    been    betrothed    to    the 
Messiah,  there  they  light  their  torches  and  with 
the    Bridegroom    do    they    enter   the    marriage 
chamber.     .     .     .     The     wedding-feast     of     the 
daughters  of  Eve  is  for   seven  days,   but  theirs 
is    the    Bridegroom    that  doth  not   withdraw  for 
1  Givynn,  p.  367  ;  Wright^  p.  113  ff. 


APHRAATES  139 

ever.  The  adornment  of  the  daughters  of  Eve 
is  wool  that  wears  out  and  perishes,  but  theirs  is 
clothing  that  doth  not  wear  out.  The  beauty  of 
the  daughters  of  Eve,  old  age  doth  wither  it, 
but  their  beauty  in  the  time  of  the  resurrection 
is  renewed." 

"O  virgins  who  have  betrothed  yourselves 
to  the  Messiah,"  continues  Aphraates,  "when 
one  of  the  b'nai  Q'ydmd  shall  say  to  one  of  you 
'  I  will  dwell  with  thee,  and  thou  minister  to  me,' 
thus  shalt  thou  say  to  him  :  '  To  a  royal  Husband 
am  I  betrothed,  and  to  Him  do  I  minister ;  and 
if  I  leave  his  ministry  and  minister  to  thee,  my 
Betrothed  will  be  wroth  with  me  and  will  write 
me  a  letter  of  divorce  and  will  dismiss  me  from 
His  house,  and  while  thou  seekest  to  be  honoured 
by  me  and  I  to  be  honoured  by  thee,  see  lest 
hurt  come  upon  me  and  thee.  Take  not  fire  in 
thy  bosom  lest  it  burn  thy  garments,  but  be  thou 
in  honour  by  thyself  and  I  will  be  by  myself 
in  honour.' " 

There  are  many  other  general  directions  given 
by  Aphraates  in  the  rest  of  his  Discourse  for 
the  conduct  of  the  B'nai  Q'ydmd,  but  they  do 
not  call  for  special  remark  here.  The  rule  of 
life  which  he  sketches  out  is  quiet,  dignified, 
and  temperate,  with  no  special  features  of 
observance    or   asceticism.     But    I    have   quoted 


140  MARRIAGE  AND  THE  SACRAMENTS 

largely  from  the  parts  which  deal  with  his  view 
of  the  relations,  or  rather  the  absence  of  relations, 
between  man  and  woman,  because  they  are  of 
the  essence  of  his  view  of  the  Christian  life, 
and  because  nothing  but  a  rather  full  method  of 
quotation  would  sufficiently  illustrate  his  attitude. 
And  here  I  must  once  again  emphasise  the  im- 
portance of  the  passage  in  the  Seventh  Discourse 
with  which  I  set  out,  where  Aphraates  dissuades 
those  who  intend  to  marry  from  coming  to 
baptism.1  That  is  the  decisive  point  which 
separates  these  exhortations  from  later  works 
such  as  the  Discourses  of  Philoxenus  or  S. 
Benedict's  rule  itself.  "  Priests  and  scribes  and 
sages,  call  and  say  to  all  the  people :  let  him 
that  hath  betrothed  a  wife  and  doth  wish  to 
take  her,  let  him  turn  back  and  rejoice  with  his 
wife,"2  says  Aphraates,  and  the  call  is  a  call 
to  Baptism.  The  Christian  community  with  all 
its  privileges  and  blessings  is  on  this  theory 
restricted  to  celibates  who  have  as  much  as 
possible  withdrawn  from  the  world :  the  mass 
of  the  people  stand  outside.  Not  only  Art, 
Science,  and  Politics,  but  also  the  Hearth  and 
the  Home,  are  shut  out  from  the  province  of 
Religion. 


1  See  above,  p.  126. 

2  Wright,  p.  146.    The  words  are  a  paraphrase  of  Deut.  xx  7. 


THE   MARCIONITES  HI 

Before  we  criticise  this  view  of  life  let  us 
remember  that  it  is  well  known  outside  the 
Catholic  Church.  The  Buddhist  Community  is 
essentially  a  Community  of  monks,  who  alone 
constitute  the  congregation  of  the  faithful.  The 
people  stand  by  the  side  and  honour  the  saints, 
but  they  themselves  do  not  tread  the  Path.  And 
to  come  to  what  is  really  nearer  home,  the  same 
state  of  things  that  is  contemplated  by  Aphraates 
actually  obtained  among  the  Marcionites  during 
the  three  hundred  years  and  more  of  their 
existence  as  an  organised  body.  It  had  always 
been  a  puzzle  to  me  how  the  Marcionites  main- 
tained their  numbers,  for  their  way  of  life  must 
have  been  strict  or  their  Catholic  opponents 
would  have  accused  them  of  vice.  Doubtless 
the  greater  number  of  them  entered  religion 
late  in  life,  forsaking  their  families  as  Rabbula 
did.  As  with  Aphraates,  the  followers  of 
Marcion  admitted  to  baptism  only  those  who 
intended  for  the  remainder  of  their  days  to  lead 
a  celibate  life.1  Marriage  to  the  Marcionites 
meant  spiritual  marriage  to  Christ :  the  con- 
nexions formed  before  baptism  among  Marcionite 


1  Cf.  Tertullian  adv.  Marcionem  iv  34  (on  Luke  xvi  18):  "Aut 
si  omnino  negas  permitti  diuortium  a  Christo,  quomodo  tu  nuptias 
dirimis,  nee  coniungens  marem  et  feminam  nee  alibi  coniunctos  ad 
sacramentum  baptismatis  et  eucharistiae  admittens  nisi  inter  se 
coniurauerint  aduersus  fruetum  nuptiarum?" 


142  MARRIAGE   AND   THE   SACRAMENTS 

adherents  were  not  recognised  by  the  Marcionite 
Church,  which  consisted  only  of  the  Baptized. 
It  is  worth  notice  that  among  the  many  faults 
found  by  S.  Ephraim  in  his  polemic  against 
Marcion  and  his  followers  their  rejection  of 
Christian  marriage  is  not  included. 

The  same  system  also  prevailed  among  the 
Manichees,  who  were  divided  into  the  "  Elect " 
and  the  "Hearers."  The  "Elect"  were  alone 
fully  initiated,  and  they  also  were  ascetics, 
celibate,  and  living  on  herbs  provided  for  them 
by  the  inferior  class  of  "  Hearers."  Their  reputed 
descendants,  the  Albigenses  in  the  South  of 
France,  still  continued  the  separation  between 
the  ascetic  Elect  and  the  ordinary  disciples,  and 
the  rite  of  admission  to  the  order  of  the  Elect 
was  called  by  them  spiritual  Christian  baptism. l 

To  return  to  the  Syriac-speaking  Church  and 
the  history  of  the  Bnai  Q'ydmd.  Aphraates  is 
the  last  witness  to  the  old  order  of  things.  After 
his  time,  and  perhaps  before  his  time  within  the 
Syriac-speaking  provinces  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
married  persons  were  admitted  to  baptism,  and 
conversely  baptism  and  the  reception  of  the 
Lord's    Supper   was    no   longer   regarded    as    a 


1  See    the    Ritual    of    Consolamentum,    as    given    in    F.    C. 
Conybeare's  Key  of  Truth,  Appendix  vi,  pp.  160-170. 


THE  CANONS  OF   RABBULA  143 

bar  to  matrimony.  At  what  date  the  Church 
in  the  East  actually  came  to  bless  the  ceremony 
of  betrothal  I  have  not  been  able  to  discover. 
What  is  more  easy  to  trace  is  the  gradual  decay 
of  the  b'nai  Q'ydmd,  as  shown  by  the  rules  which 
Rabbula  found  it  necessary  to  draw  up  for  them. 

These  rules  are  found  in  a  work  called 
Commands  and  Admonitions  to  Priests  and  to 
Sons  of  the  Covenant  living  in  the  country, a  and 
no  better  way  could  be  found  of  getting"  an 
accurate  picture  of  the  Mesopotamian  Church 
early  in  the  fifth  century  than  by  the  study  of 
them,  both  by  what  Rabbula  commands  and  by 
what  he  thinks  it  necessary  to  forbid. 

1.  "First  of  all,"  says  Rabbula,  "let  the  Sons  of  the  Church 
know  the  True  Faith  of  Holy  Church,  that  they  be  not  led 
astray  by  heretics. 

2.  "  Let  not  any  of  the  Periodeutoe  or  the  Priests  and 
Deacons  or  of  the  Sons  of  the  Covenant  dwell  with  women, 
save  with  his  mother  or  his  sister  or  with  his  daughter,  and 
let  them  not  make  households  for  these  women  outside 
their  own  establishment  and  let  them  persevere  in  living 
with  these  women." 

Apparently  therefore  the  ecclesiastic  was  not 
to  live  with  a  married  sister,  or  to  live  with  one 
sister  after  another. 

3.  "Let  not  Priests  and  Deacons  and  Sons  of  the  Covenant 


1  Overdeck,  pp.  215-221. 


144  MARRIAGE  AND   THE  SACRAMENTS 

compel  the   Daughters  of  the  Covenant  to  weave  garments 
for  them  against  their  will. 

4.  "Let  not  Priests  and  Deacons  be  ministered  to  by 
women,  and  specially  by  the  Daughters  of  the  Covenant. 

5.  "  Let  not  Priests  and  Deacons  and  Periodeutse  take  a 
bribe  from  anyone,  and  specially  from  those  who  are  bringing 
a  suit  [before  them]." 

The  Periodeutes  was  a  sort  of  Visitor,  some- 
thing between  a  Suffragan  Bishop  and  a  Rural 
Dean. 

6.  "  Let  not  Priests  and  Deacons  make  collections  either 
from  the  Sons  of  the  Covenant  or  from  laymen,  even  if 
commanded  by  those  of  the  city,  but  let  the  needs  of  the 
Church  be  filled  by  him  who  gives  of  his  own  free  will. 

7.  "  When  the  Bishop  comes  to  a  village,  let  them  not 
make  collections  from  laymen  in  the  Bishop's  name;  but 
if  there  be  anything  in  the  Church  let  them  pay  what  suffices 
from  the  Church's  funds,  and  if  there  be  nothing  in  the  Church 
let  them  not  give  anything. 

9.  "  Let  not  Priests  and  Deacons  and  Sons  of  the  Covenant 
and  Daughters  of  the  Covenant  demand  interest  or  usury  or 
any  trades  of  filthy  lucre. 

10.  "  Let  not  the  Sons  of  the  Covenant  or  the  Daughters 
of  the  Covenant  allow  their  Priests  to  dwell  with  laymen 
save  with  their  relatives  only,  or  with  one  another. 

n.  "Let  all  the  Sons  of  the  Church  persevere  in  fasting 
and  be  instant  in  prayer  :  let  them  have  care  for  the  poor 
and  require  justice  for  the  oppressed  without  respect  of 
persons. 

12.  "Let  all  the  Priests  in  the  villages  have  care  for  the 
poor  that  betake  themselves  to  them,  and  especially  those 
that  are  Sons  of  the  Covenant. 

16.  "In  every  Church   there  is,  let  a  house  be  known  in 


THE   CANONS  OF  RABBULA  14$ 

which  the  poor  that  betake  themselves  thither  can  rest ;  but 
diviners  and  wizards  and  those  who  write  charms  and  anoint 
men  and  women  under  the  pretence  of  making  cures  drive 
out  from  every  place,  and  exact  from  them  promises  that  they 
will  not  invade  our  dominions. 

17.  "Let  not  the  Daughters  of  the  Covenant  be  allowed 
to  come  or  go  to  Church  alone  by  night,  but  if  possible 
let  them  dwell  with  one  another ;  and  so  also  with  the  Sons 
of  the  Covenant. 

18.  "If  there  be  any  of  the  Sons  of  the  Covenant  or  of 
the  Daughters  of  the  Covenant  in  need,  let  the  Priests  or 
Deacons  of  their  villages  take  care  of  them;  but  if  he  is 
not  able  to  do  so,  let  him  inform  us  that  we  may  provide 
for  them,  lest  because  of  their  need  they  may  be  compelled 
to  do  something  that  is  not  suitable." 

It  is  evident  from  this  that  it  was  the  exception 
for  a  Son  or  Daughter  of  the  Covenant  to  be  in 
actual  want :  evidently  they  took  no  express 
vow  of  poverty. 

19.  "  Let  the  Sons  of  the  Covenant  learn  the  Psalms  and 
the  Daughters  of  the  Covenant  learn  Hymns  also. 

20.  "  Let  not  Priests  or  Deacons  or  Sons  of  the  Covenant 
and  Daughters  of  the  Covenant  pronounce  the  Name  of 
God '  and  swear,  neither  in  falsehood  nor  in  truth,  but  (let 
their  speech  be)  as  is  commanded." 

The  reference,  of  course,  is  to  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  but  the  phrase  about  not  pro- 
nouncing the  Name  of  God  is  curiously  Jewish 
in  tone. 


1   In  Syr\a.c,  pars/tin  s/t'md  bAlaha  :  cf.  Lev.  xxiv  ii. 

K 


I46  MARRIAGE  AND  THE  SACRAMENTS 

21.  "Let  not  the  Periodeutas,  or  the  Priests  or  Deacons, 
stay  in  the  public  khans  or  in  an  inn  when  they  enter  the 
city,  but  let  them  stay  in  the  Church's  guest-house,  or  in 
the  monasteries  outside. 

22.  "  Let  Priests  and  Deacons  and  the  Sons  and  Daughters 
of  the  Covenant  abstain  from  wine  and  from  flesh,  but  if 
there  be  any  among  them  who  is  ill  in  body  let  him  have 
a  little,  as  it  is  written ;  but  those  who  are  drunken  or  who 
enter  the  wine-shops,  let  them  be  cast  out  of  the  Church. 

23.  "Let  none  of  those  who  have  become  disciples  of 
Christ  be  covetous  to  get  more  than  their  need,  but  let  them 
act  as  stewards  for  the  poor. 

24-26.  "Let  not  Priests  and  Deacons  and  Sons  of  the 
Covenant  become  keepers  of  threshing-floors  or  vineyards 
or  the  hired  labourers  of  laymen,  or  bailiffs,  or  agents  for 
laymen,  or  have  anything  to  do  with  the  law,  but  they  are 
to  keep  to  the  Service  of  the  Church  and  not  to  allow 
the  offices  of  prayer  and  of  psalm  -  singing  to  cease  day  or 
night." 

The  phrases  about  the  law  are  rather  obscure. 
Apparently  the  ecclesiastics  were  forbidden  to 
become  "sheriff's  officers." 

27.  "Anathematise  and  bind  and  send  to  the  city  for 
judgment  the  laymen  that  dares  to  take  to  wife  a  Daughter 
of  the  Covenant;  and  if  she  also  by  her  own  consent  was 
corrupted,  let  them  send  her  also." 

The  tone  of  passion  that  still  rings  through 
this  Canon  makes  me  think  that  the  contem- 
plated event  was  likely  to  happen  now  and  then, 
and  that  not  a  few  of  the  Daughters  of  the 
Covenant  repented  of  premature  vows. 


THE   CANONS   OF   RABBULA  I47 

28.  "Sons  or  Daughters  of  the  Covenant  that  fall  from 
their  estate  send  to  the  monasteries  for  penance ;  b  ut  if 
they  stay  not  in  the  monastery,  let  them  not  be  received  in 
the  Church,  except  they  be  detained  with  their  parents  for 
so  long  a  time  as  is  right. 

29.  "Do  not  admit  to  instruction  (or,  'discipleship ')  any 
woman  that  has  a  husband  other  than  her  own  husband, 
nor  any  man  that  has  a  wife  other  than  his  lawful  partner, 
that  the  Name  of  God  be  not  blasphemed. 

30.  "  Let  not  Priests  permit  those  who  are  found  in 
adultery  to  offer  the  Sacrament,  save  by  our  express 
permission. 

31.  "Let  not  any  of  the  Priests  or  of  the  Deacons  or  any 
of  the  Sons  of  the  Church  dare  to  place  common  vessels 
side  by  side  with  the  Sacramental  vessels  in  any  box  or 
chest." 

Here  again  we  have  the  same  tone  of  lofty 
indignation  that  we  noticed  with  regard  to 
appropriation  of  a  Daughter  of  the  Covenant, 
and  it  is  only  just  to  Rabbula  to  observe  that 
from  his  point  of  view  he  would  regard  it  as 
exactly  the  same  crime. 

32.  "Let  no  one  dare  to  come  near  and  give  the  Oblation, 
except  he  be  a  Priest  or  Deacon. 

33.  "All  the  lords  of  villages  hold  in  the  honour  that  is 
due  to  them,  but  not  so  that  ye  become  servile  and  oppress 
the  poor. 

36.  "  Let  them  not  permit  the  Sons  of  the  Covenant  to  go 
to  gatherings  or  other  places  except  with  Priests,  nor  the 
Daughters  of  the  Covenant  except  with  Deaconesses. 

37.  "Let  not  any  one  of  the  Priests  or  of  the  Deacons  or 
of  the  Sons  of  the   Covenant  except   by  our  command   go 


148  MARRIAGE  AND  THE  SACRAMENTS 

away  to  the  Imperial  Army  (Comitatus)  or  to  any  distant 
place  and  leave  his  Church,  even  if  it  be  a  matter  of  business 
for  his  village  or  his  Church. 

38.  "  Let  all  the  Priests  take  care  for  the  service  of  the 
House  of  God,  and  let  them  be  doing  whatever  is  necessary 
for  the  ordering  of  the  House,  and  let  them  not  feed  beasts 
in  the  Church,  that  the  House  of  God  be  not  brought  into 
contempt. 1 

39.  "The  Periodeutes  or  Priest  or  Deacon  that  departs 
from  this  world,  whatever  he  has  he  shall  leave  to  the  Church. 

40.  "  Neither  Priests  nor  Deacons  nor  Sons  of  the 
Covenant  shall  make  themselves  sureties  for  anyone,  neither 
with  or  without  a  written  deed. 

41.  "Let  Priests  and  Deacons  dwell  in  the  Church,  and 
if  possible  the  Sons  of  the  Covenant  also. 

42.  "Let  Priests  and  Deacons  have  a  care  that  in  all 
Churches  a  copy  of  the  Separate  Gospels  {Evangelion  da- 
Mepharrhhc)  shall  be  kept  and  used  for  reading. 

43.  "Let  the  Priests  read  the  Gospel  where  there  is  a 
Priest,  and  not  the  Deacons  ;  Baptism  also  where  possible 
let  Priests  give. 

44.  "  Let  not  Laymen  be  stewards  in  the  Church,  save 
where  there  are  no  Sons  of  the  Covenant  fit  for  the  post. 

45.  "  Let  not  Sons  or  Daughters  of  the  Covenant  drink 
wine  at  the  funeral-feast  {lit.  'after  the  defunct ')." 

This  seems  to  have  been  regarded  as  a  heathen 
rite. 

47.  "Let  not  the  Sons  of  the  Church  have  intercourse 
with  heretics,  neither  in  word  or  in  deed. 


1  It  is  perhaps  not  out  of  place  to  mention  that  not  a  hundred 
years  ago  there  was  a  Westmoreland  Church,  part  of  which  was 
partitioned  off  as  a  fold  for  sheep.  The  parson  sat  in  the  Chancel 
spinning,  while  he  taught  the  day-school. 


THE   CANONS  OF   RABBULA  1 49 

49.  "  The  books  of  heretics  and  their  receptacles  seek 
out  in  every  place ;  and  wherever  ye  can,  either  bring  them 
to  us  or  burn  them  in  the  fire. 

51.  "Let  not  Priests  give  the  Oblation  to  those  who  are 
troubled  with  demons,  that  no  disgrace  befall  the  Sacrament 
in  the  Communion  of  devils. 

56.  "Let  no  man  leave  his  wife,  unless  he  has  found  her 
in  adultery,  nor  let  the  wife  leave  her  husband  for  all  sorts 
of  causes." 

Note  that  it  does  not  expressly  say  that  these 
persons  are  assumed  to  be  of  the  baptized  :  they 
may  only  be  among  those  who  had  become 
"disciples  of  Christ"  as  in  No.  23,  i.e.  un- 
baptized  Catechumens. 

57.  "Let  no  man  take  to  wife  his  sister's  daughter  or  his 
brother's  daughter,  nor  his  father's  sister  or  his  mother's 
sister." 

You  will  notice  that  the  deceased  wife's  sister 
is  not  included  in  this  simple  Table  of  prohibited 
degrees.  The  Canons  end  with  two  further 
directions  for  the  decent  ordering  of  the  Service, 
viz : 

58.  "Let  not  the  Sons  of  the  Covenant  go  up  the  altar- 
steps,  or  bring  up  any  food  into  the  apse ;  either  let  the 
Priest  eat  there,  or  let  a  man  dine  in  the  nave. l  And  let 
nothing  be  put  there  save  the  Sacramental  vessels. 

59.  "Priests  and  Deacons  when  they  give  the  Sacrament, 
let  them  not  receive  any  gift  from  those  that  take  the 
Sacrament." 


1  The  Syriac  is  tu'f'as  b'haik'la. 


150  MARRIAGE  AND  THE   SACRAMENTS 

"  Here  end  the  commands  and  admonitions 
to  Priests  and  Sons  of  the  Covenant,"  says 
our  document,  and  I  think  you  will  agree  with 
me  that  they  give  us  a  very  vivid  picture  of 
Syrian  Church  life  in  the  fifth  century.  The 
B'nai  Q'yamd,  the  Sons  and  Daughters  of  the 
Covenant,  are  still  the  backbone  of  the  Church. 
They  live  separately  in  their  own  homes  or  in 
the  homes  of  their  near  relations,  or  else  in 
small  informal  communities  such  as  the  Clergy 
House  sometimes  attached  to  a  large  Anglican 
parish.  Besides  these  there  are  "  Disciples  of 
Christ "  who  may  be  married,  but  it  is  not 
directly  implied  that  these  are  in  the  enjoyment 
of  the  sacraments  of  the  Church.  It  is  very 
probable  that  by  the  time  Rabbula  issued  his 
Canons  they  were  actually  admitted  to  baptism 
and  communion,  but  the  ideal  legislator  does 
not  always  officially  recognise  lax  customs  that 
have  sprung  up :  it  would  be  a  mistake  to 
argue  from  the  Anglican  Bidding- Prayer  that 
all  the  Commons  of  the  realm  were  in  sincere 
and  conscientious  communion  with  the  Established 
Church. 

I  should  have  liked  to  conclude  this  Lecture 
by  giving  you  an  account  of  the  introduction 
of  the  Marriage  Service  into  the  Syriac-speaking 
Church.     But  I  have  not  been  able  to  discover 


THE   RELIGIOUS  CEREMONY  151 

at  what  period  this  innovation  was  made.  The 
Service  actually  adopted  contained  several  picture- 
esque  features.  There  was  a  Benediction  of  the 
Wedding  Rings,  a  Benediction  of  the  Bridegroom 
and  the  Bride,  a  Benediction  of  their  Wedding 
Crowns,  and  a  Benediction  of  the  Groomsmen.1 
No  doubt  a  good  deal  of  the  ceremony  is  very 
ancient,  and  might  afford  material  for  students 
of  sociology  and  of  folk-lore.  But  what  we  are 
in  search  of  is  the  introduction  of  a  religious 
element  into  the  feasting,  the  institution  of 
Holy  Matrimony.  In  the  West  of  course  it 
had  been  long  practised,  perhaps  from  the 
beginning,  certainly  from  the  time  of  Tertullian.2 
Among  the  Syriac-speaking  branch  of  the  Church, 
as  we  have  seen,  it  was  not  a  native  growth. 

I  have  devoted  the  whole  of  this  Lecture  to 
the  one  question  of  Christian  Marriage,  because 
the  attitude  of  a  religious  institution  toward 
matters  of  conduct  and  morality  is  after  all  more 
fundamentally  important  than  its  attitude  to  those 
high  philosophical  problems  of  theology  which 
are  only  the  pursuit  of  a  few,  however  much 
the  party  watchwords  may  become  the  battle 
cries  of  the  many.      And  we  may   well    rejoice 


1  To  be  found  e.g.  in  B.M.  Add.  14493,  a  MS.  of  the  tenth  century. 
1  Felicitatem  eius  matrimonii  quod  .  .  .  .  obsignat  benedictio  (Tert. 
ad  Vxorem  ii  8). 


152  MARRIAGE  AND  THE  SACRAMENTS 

that  the  tendency  which  developed  in  the  early 
Syriac-speaking  branch  of  the  Church  more 
strongly  than  elsewhere  failed  to  become  the 
established  law.  The  solemnization  of  weddings 
by  a  Christian  rite  is  a  custom  so  familiar  to 
us,  that  we  may  easily  come  to  think  of  it  as 
natural  and  inevitable,  but  the  words  of  Aphraates 
teach  us  that  it  was  not  always  so  regarded. 
We  cannot  doubt  that  he  would  have  regarded 
such  a  ceremony  with  horror. 

The  healthier  instinct  of  the  West  has 
saved  us  from  a  Buddhistic  organisation  of 
Christendom,  for  it  is  surely  no  light  gain  to 
Christian  society  that  the  bridal  feast  has  been 
hallowed  with  the  blessing  of  the  Church. 
"  Holy  religion  of  matrimony  should  men  and 
women  be  taught  of  priests  by  authority  of 
God's  law,  and  then  when  they  take  it  they 
would  be  the  more  able  to  keep  it  virtuously.  .  .  . 
For  through  his  children  a  man  is  known,  faithful 
or  unfaithful ;  faithful  if  he  keep  the  honest 
religion  of  wedlock  as  is  before  said,  and  un- 
faithful if  he  do  the  contrary."  These  words 
from  an  unknown  Lollard  commentator  on  the 
Psalms1  express  far  more  nearly  than  anything 
I  have  read  to  you  from  Aphraates  or  Rabbula 

1  Quoted  by  Miss  A.  C.  Paues  (from  B.  M.  Reg.  18  C  26,/  146) 
in  A  Fourteenth  Century  English  Biblical  Version,  p.  xlix. 


THE   BRIDES  OF  CHRIST  I  53 

a  worthy  Christian  view  of  man  and  wife  and  of 
their  duties  to  themselves  and  to  society. 

In  conclusion  I  must  remind  you  of  the 
immense  part  played,  both  in  the  discourage- 
ment of  marriage  and  in  its  subsequent  per- 
mission, by  the  doctrine  of  the  Sacraments. 
According  to  Aphraates,  strict  continence  is  the 
way  to  secure  the  physical  efficiency  of  Baptism 
for  a  good  resurrection  on  the  last  day.1  And 
he  uses  with  pleasure  the  unfortunate  metaphor 
of  the  Brides  of  Christ,  who  in  place  of  a 
mortal  husband  are  betrothed  to  the  Messiah.2 
The  same  tone  of  reprobation  is  used  by  Rabbula 
for  the  man  who  marries  a  Daughter  of  the 
Covenant,  with  or  without  her  consent,  and  for  the 
man  who  puts  ordinary  objects  in  the  same  box 
with  the  sacramental  furniture  :  both  crimes  are 
an  act  of  sacrilege  against  the  Vessels  in  which 
Christ  is  pleased  locally  to  dwell.  The  way  of 
Life,  that  is  to  say  the  method  of  obtaining  life 
in  the  next  world,  was  through  the  Sacraments  ; 
and  when  this  view  was  clearly  conceived,  the 
first  answer  of  the  Christian  community  in  the 
flush  of  its  early  enthusiasm  was  that  so  sacred 
a  means  must  be  honoured  in  those  who  use 
it  by  a  special  manner  of  living.     This  answered 


1  Aphraates,  Wright  125,  Gwynn  372. 

2  Wright  115/,  Gwynn  367  f. 


154  MARRIAGE  AND  THE  SACRAMENTS 

well  enough  for  the  needs  of  the  Church  while 
it  was  a  comparatively  small  and  persecuted  body, 
but  the  time  came  when  all  the  world  wished 
to  be  at  least  nominally  Christian,  and  a  change 
was  inevitable.  The  way  of  Life,  they  said,  is 
through  the  Sacraments.  Without  the  Sacra- 
ments we  are  doomed  to  eternal  misery  :  therefore 
the  way  of  living  to  be  required  from  baptized 
Christians  must  be  something  compatible  with 
ordinary  life  in  the  world.  Those  who  wished 
for  the  protection  of  the  Sacraments  all  their 
life  obviously  could  not  promise  to  be  monks 
and  nuns,  and  so  the  great  change  came  about. 
The  interest  of  the  Syriac-speaking  Church  for 
the  study  of  the  evolution  of  the  Christian  society 
lies  in  this,  that  in  it  this  great  change  was  not 
completed  till  the  fifth  century  a.d. 


LECTURE  V 

BARDAISAN    AND    HIS    DISCIPLES 

As  Renan  said  long  ago,  and  as  William  Wright 
repeats  in  the  opening  words  of  his  Short  History 
of  Syriac  Literature,  the  characteristic  of  the 
Syrians  is  a  certain  mediocrity.  They  shone 
neither  in  war,  nor  in  the  arts,  nor  in  science. 
They  lacked  the  poetic  fire  of  the  older  Hebrews 
and  of  the  Arabs.  But  they  were  apt  enough 
as  pupils  of  the  Greeks ;  they  assimilated  and 
reproduced,  adding  little  or  nothing  of  their 
own.  There  was  no  Alfarabi,  no  Avicenna, 
no  Averro'es,  in  the  cloisters  of  Edessa,  Oinnesrin, 
or  Nisibis.  The  Syrian  Church  of  the  fourth 
and  succeeding  centuries  failed  to  produce  men 
who  rose  to  the  level  of  a  Eusebius,  a  Gregory 
Nazianzen,  a  Basil,  and  a  Chrysostom.  "The 
literature  of  Syria,"  says  Dr  Wright,  "  is,  on 
the  whole,  not  an  attractive  one."  I  am  not 
going  to  challenge  this  severe  verdict  on  the 
general  ground.  Syriac  Literature  presents  the 
depressing    spectacle    of  a   steady    Decline    and 

155 


156  BARDAISAN   AND  HIS  DISCIPLES 

Fall,  following  the  general  collapse  of  civilisation 
in  the  East.  Moreover  what  we  have  of  it  is 
a  specialised  department.  The  Syriac  Literature 
that  has  come  down  to  us  is  not,  like  the  literature 
of  the  Greeks  or  Arabs,  a  selection  of  almost  all 
the  departments  of  human  activity.  What  we 
have  in  Syriac  is  practically  nothing  more  than 
the  contents  of  a  very  fine  monastic  Library. 
Many  departments  of  profane  literature  are  but 
little  represented  and  even  the  ancient  heretics 
are  rarely  allowed  to  speak  to  us,  except  through 
the  imperfect  medium  of  orthodox  refutations. 

What  we  have  of  Syriac  Literature  is,  taken  in 
the  lump,  dull.  But  there  are  some  indications 
that  outside  the  walls  of  the  orthodox  cloisters 
there  was  in  early  times  some  independent  life 
and  light,  and  a  little  has  percolated  through 
to  us.  I  propose  in  the  present  Lecture  to 
illustrate  this  side  of  Syriac  Literature  from  the 
one  philosophical  work  of  the  School  of  Bardaisan 
that  has  come  down  to  us. 

Bardaisan,  called  "The  last  of  the  Gnostics," 
a  man  distinguished  by  birth,  by  learning,  by 
intelligence,  became  a  Christian  during  the  last 
quarter  of  the  second  century.  He  died  in  the 
year  222  a.d.,  having  by  that  time  separated 
himself  from  the  organisation  of  the  Church  of 
his  native  place.     Later  ages    regarded    him    as 


THE   LAST   OF   THE   GNOSTICS  157 

a  heretic ;  and  when  the  sect  that  had  been 
formed  by  his  followers  died  out,  the  monastic 
libraries  did  not  greatly  care  to  preserve  even 
the  orthodox  confutations  of  his  doctrine.  We 
are  therefore  obliged  to  reconstruct  from  scattered 
notices  and  the  ill-informed  partisan  statements  of 
later  chroniclers  our  picture  of  the  only  original 
thinker  which  the  Syriac  Church  helped  to 
mould. 

Let  us  first  hear  what  Eusebius  has  to  tell  us, 
writing  barely  a  century  after  the  death  of 
Bardaisan.  Eusebius  {HE  iv  30)  says  that 
Bardesanes  (as  the  Greeks  called  Bardaisan)  was 
a  most  competent  writer  in  his  native  Syriac, 
and  that  he  wrote  treatises  against  Marcion  and 
other  heretics,  some  of  which  had  been  translated 
into  Greek.  Among  these  was  a  Dialogue  on 
Fate  addressed  to  "Antoninus,"  by  whom 
Eusebius  (or  his  source)  may  have  meant 
Caracalla,  or  even  Elagabalus.  We  are  told 
further  that  Bardesanes  had  been  a  disciple  of 
Valentinus  the  Gnostic,  but  that  he  abandoned 
his  teaching  for  more  orthodox  views,  yet 
without  ever  quite  shaking  off  the  old  slough 
of  heretical  opinion.  Eusebius  gives  no  exact 
dates,  but  puts  Bardaisan  under  Pope  Soter,  i.e. 
about  179,  the  traditional  date  of  his  conversion 
to  Christianity. 


158  BARDAISAN   AND   HIS  DISCIPLES 

Epiphanius  tells  us  more,  but  as  usual  it  is 
not  safe  to  trust  all  that  this  amiable  Father 
of  the  Church  says  about  a  heretic.  He 
evidently  regarded  the  accession  of  Bardaisan 
to  Christianity  as  one  of  the  results  of  the 
conversion  of  the  blessed  King  Abgar.  He 
seems  however  to  have  some  knowledge  of 
Bardaisan's  works,  for  he  tells  us  quite  truly 
that  the  Dialogue  on  Fate  was  written  against 
the  doctrines  of  a  certain  'Awida  the  Astrologer.1 
But  whereas  Eusebius  tells  us  that  Bardaisan 
had  been  a  follower  of  Valentinus  and  never 
quite  shook  off  his  heresy,  Epiphanius  makes 
him  become  a  follower  of  Valentinus  after  he 
had  been  orthodox. 

The  fullest  account  of  Bardaisan  is  that  inserted 
in  the  Syriac  Chronicle  of  Michael  the  Great, 
Jacobite  Patriarch  of  Antioch  from  11 66  to  11 99. 
We  have  already  had  occasion  to  discuss  this 
account  in  the  first  of  these  Lectures  when 
considering  the  early  episcopal  succession  to 
the  See  of  Edessa,  but  it  may  not  be  out  of 
place  to  remind  you  once  again  how  circumspect 
we  ought  to  be  in  trusting  to  details  preserved 
in  so  late  a  source.  Bardaisan  lived  a  thousand 
years  before  the  Patriarch  Michael  compiled  his 
Chronicle,  and  we  can  only  regard  the  Chronicle 

1  Aveidav  tov  &tjTpov6/jLov  (Oehler  i,  pt.  2,  p.  144,  note). 


THE  CHRONICLE  OF   MICHAEL  1 59 

as  a  serious  source  of  historical  information  in 
those  passages  where  there  is  good  reason  to 
believe  that  Michael  and  his  predecessors  have  all 
copied  faithfully  from  a  much  older  source.  In 
the  present  case  we  have  to  allow  for  ignorance 
and  prejudice  :  ignorance,  because  the  learning 
and  the  philosophy  of  an  independent  thinker 
are  not  easily  packed  into  the  compendiums  of 
annalists,  and  prejudice,  because  Bardaisan's 
name  was  chiefly  known  in  later  ages  as  that 
of  a  great  heretic  and  schismatic,  and  it  was 
assumed  that  he  must  have  been  immoral  and 
irrational.  With  these  reservations  let  us  take 
Michael's  account. 

After  declaring  how  Bardaisan  was  converted 
in  179  a.d.  by  Bishop  Hystasp  of  Edessa,  and 
ordained  by  him  a  Deacon  ( ! ) :  Michael  mentions 
that  Bardaisan  wrote  treatises  against  heresies 
and  that  he  turned  to  the  doctrines  of  Valentinus. 
He  then  goes  on  to  tell  us  :  "  Bardaisan  says 
that  there  are  three  chief  Natures  (K'ydne)  and 
four  existences  {Ithye),  which  are  Reason  and 
Power  and  Understanding  and  Knowledge.  The 
four  Powers  are  Fire  and  Water  and  Light  and 
Spirit  (or  Wind),  and  from  these  come  the 
other  existences  of  the    world2   to    the    number 


1  Chabot,  Michel  le  Syrien  [no]. 

2  The  MS.  has  "and  the  world." 


l6o  BARDAISAN   AND   HIS  DISCIPLES 

of  360.  And  Bardaisan  says  that  He  who 
spake  with  Moses  and  the  Prophets  was  the 
Chief  of  the  Angels  and  not  God  Himself;  our 
Lord  was  clothed  with  the  body  of  an  Angel 
and  [from]1  Mary  the  shining  Soul  was  clothed 
which  thus  took  form  and  body.  Furthermore 
the  Upper  Powers  gave  man  his  soul  and  the 
Lower  Powers  gave  him  his  limbs :  the  Sun 
gave  the  brain,  and  the  Moon  and  the  Planets 
gave  the  other  parts."  Then  follow  some 
almost  unintelligible  remarks  about  the  syzygy 
of  the  Sun  and  Moon,  whereby  the  material 
world  is  renewed  every  month.  Michael  then 
informs  us  that  according  to  Bardaisan  "the 
Messiah,  the  Son  of  God,  was  born  under 
the  planet  Jupiter,  crucified  in  the  hour  of  Mars, 
buried  in  the  hour  of  Mercury,  and  in  the  time 
of  Jupiter  He  arose  from  the  grave."  Bardaisan 
also  said  that  the  dead  do  not  rise  and  that 
dreams  are  true,  and  marriage  he  calls  a  good 
purification.  "2  He  had  three  sons,  Abgaron, 
Hasdu,  and  Harmonius,  who  all  remained  true 
to  his  doctrines. 

It   is   difficult   to   extract   from    this   confused 
farrago    of    statements    anything    certain    about 


1  The  MS.  omits  "  from." 

2  So  Bar  Hebraeus  understands  the  passage  from  which  Michael 
quotes. 


THE   DIALOGUE   ON    FATE  l6l 

the  real  nature  of  Bardaisan's  teaching.  At 
the  same  time  some  of  the  statements  above 
quoted  are  confirmed  from  other  sources,  such 
as  the  express  declaration  in  Ephraim's  Treatise 
against  False  Doctrines  (Ad  Hypatium,  bk.  ii, 
in  Overbeck,  p.  63)  that  Bardaisan  had  said 
that  the  human  Soul  was  mixed  and  com- 
pounded of  seven  constituents.  Unfortunately 
the  latter  part  of  this  valuable  prose  Treatise 
exists  only  as  an  almost  illegible  palimpsest 
which  still  awaits  a  decipherer. l  The  metrical 
discourses  of  Ephraim  against  Heretics  must 
also  be  used  with  great  caution,  for  the  very 
reason  that  they  are  written  in  metre.  It  is 
difficult  to  quote  one's  adversary  accurately,  if 
you  are  tied  down  to  a  verse  of  five  syllables 
to  the  line. 

Fortunately  we  are  not  entirely  obliged  to 
gain  our  knowledge  of  Bardaisan  from  refuta- 
tions of  his  opinions.  The  Dialogue  on  Fate, 
mentioned  by  Eusebius  and  Epiphanius,  has 
been  actually  preserved.  Like  so  many  other 
treasures  of  Syriac  literature  it  was  discovered 


1  What  Overbeck  has  published  is  only  the  First  Book 
and  about  half  the  Second  There  were  originally  Five  Books, 
each  beginning  in  turn  with  the  five  letters  of  Ephraim's  name 
(A  F  R  Y  M).  The  palimpsest  mentioned  in  the  text  is  B.M.  Add. 
14623. 

L 


162  BARDAISAN   AND  HIS  DISCIPLES 

by  Dr  Cureton,  when  Keeper  of  the  Oriental 
MSS.  at  the  British  Museum  and  also  Rector 
of  this   Church  of  S.    Margaret's,   Westminster. 

A  surprise  meets  us  at  the  outset.  This 
famous  Dialogue,  mentioned  by  several  Fathers 
in  a  Greek  translation,  and  actually  in  large 
part  incorporated  into  more  than  one  ancient 
Christian  writing,  does  not  profess  to  be  the 
work  of  Bardaisan,  but  of  his  disciple  Philip. 
Bardaisan  himself  is  the  chief  speaker  and 
teaches  with  authority,  but  Philip  writes  in  the 
first  person.  This  Philip  is  otherwise  entirely 
unknown,  and  the  name,  so  common  in  Greek, 
is  rarely  met  with  among  the  Syrians.  Thus 
the  suspicion  arises  whether  he  is  anything  more 
than  a  literary  device.  In  any  case  there  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  there  is  any  analogy 
between  the  parts  played  by  Bardaisan  and 
Philip  in  the  De  Fato  with  those  of  Socrates 
and  Plato  in  the  Platonic  Dialogues.  A  truer 
literary  analogy  would  be  found  between  S. 
Paul  and  that  Tertius  who  wrote  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans. 

A  further  formal  difficulty  is  to  be  found  in  the 
name  of  the  Dialogue.  The  Greek  writers  who 
know  of  it  speak  of  it  as  a  treatise  On  Fate,  a 
very  suitable  description.  But  the  Syriac  MS. 
is  headed,  "The  Book  of  the  Laws  of  Countries," 


AUTHORSHIP   OF  THE   DIALOGUE  163 

and  some  modern  writers  have  assumed  that  this 
is  the  true  title.  I  incline  however  to  believe 
that  the  Greeks  were  right,  and  that  the  Syriac 
heading  of  our  MS.  is  not  so  much  the  original 
title  as  an  indication  of  the  cause  of  its  preserva- 
tion. It  is  inconceivable  that  a  work  of  the 
heresiarch  Bardaisan  or  of  his  immediate 
disciples  should  have  been  intentionally  pre- 
served except  on  a  side  issue.  A  side  issue  is 
actually  provided  by  the  interesting  descriptions 
of  heathen  customs  and  laws  mentioned  at  the 
end  of  the  Dialogue.  The  customs  are  curious 
reading  in  themselves  and  they  are  mentioned 
in  illustration  of  the  disciplinary  power  of 
Christianity.  For  the  sake  of  the  mention  of 
these  customs  the  Dialogue  was  valued  in  later 
times,  and  from  the  description  of  them  it 
acquired  this  name  of  the  "  Book  of  the  Laws 
of  Countries."  But  the  work  as  a  whole  is  really 
about  Fate,  and  it  is  more  appropriate  to  continue 
to  call  it  the  Dialogue  On  Fate. 

The  Dialogue  opens  with  narrative  :  whoever 
"  Philip  "  may  have  been,  he  was  certainly  master 
of  a  pleasant  style  and  the  art  of  arranging  his 
material.  "A  few  days  ago,"  he  says,  "we  went 
in  to  pay  a  call  on  our  brother  Shamshagram, 
and  there  Bardaisan  came  and  found  us ;  and 
when  he  had  inquired  and  found   him  well,  he 


1 64  BARDAISAN   AND   HIS   DISCIPLES 

asked  us  what  we  were  talking  about,  'for,'  said 
he,  '  I  heard  the  sound  of  your  conversation 
outside  when  I  was  coming  in.'  For  it  was  his 
custom,  whenever  he  found  us  talking,  to  ask 
us  what  it  was  about,  that  he  might  speak  thereon 
with  us.  And  we  said  to  him  :  '  Awida  here  was 
saying  to  us,  "  If  God  is  one,  as  you  say,  and  He 
constituted  the  race  of  men,  and  really  wills  what 
you  are  commanded  to  do,  why  did  He  not  con- 
stitute them  so  that  they  could  not  go  wrong,  but 
always  do  what  is  good  ?  For  in  that  case  His 
will  would  be  done." 

The  problem  is  not  exactly  a  new  one,  but 
even  after  many  centuries  the  solution  is  not 
in  our  hands.  Let  us  see  how  this  school  of 
Christian  Philosophers  looked  at  the  question. 

Bardaisan  first  replies :  "  Tell  me,  my  son 
Awida,  do  you  mean  that  there  is  not  One  who 
is  God  over  all,  or  do  you  mean  that  the  One 
God  does  not  intend  that  men  should  conduct 
themselves  justly  and  rightly?"  Awida  answers 
that  he  asked  his  friends  to  see  what  they  would 
say  first,  as  he  was  shy  of  asking  Bardaisan 
himself.  Bardaisan  assures  him  that  those  who 
come  with  a  sincere  desire  to  learn  the  truth  and 
to  set  forth  genuinely  felt  difficulties  have  no 
reason  to  be  shy  ;  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Master 
to    attempt    to    answer    such    difficulties    when 


WHY  THE  ONE  GOD  ALLOWS  ERROR     165 

they  are  put  forth.  Awida  then  says  that  his 
difficulties  are  genuinely  his  own,  but  that 
Bardaisan's  disciples  would  not  persuade  him 
by  arguments  and  kept  saying,  "you  have  only 
to  believe  and  you  will  be  able  to  know  every- 
thing," and  Awida  on  the  other  hand  said  that 
he  could  not  believe,  except  he  was  shown  reason 
for  doing  so. 

Here  we  approach  the  real  teaching  of  the 
Dialogue.  Bardaisan  does  not  reply  directly  to 
Awida,  but  turns  to  his  own  disciples,  saying  : 
"  It  is  not  Awida  alone  who  does  not  wish  to 
believe.  Many  others  are  in  the  same  case,  and 
because  there  is  no  faith  in  them  they  cannot 
be  shown  reason,  but  they  are  continually  pulling 
down  and  building  up,  and  the  end  is  a  mere 
shapeless  ruin  in  which  knowledge  of  truth  cannot 
dwell.  But  (he  continues)  since  Awida  says  he 
does  not  wish  to  believe,  I  will  talk  to  you  that 
do  believe  about  the  question  which  he  has  asked, 
and  thus  he  may  hear  something  more."  So 
Bardaisan  begins  to  say  :  "  Many  men  there  are 
who  from  lack  of  faith  have  difficulty  even  in 
listening  to  instruction,  because  they  have  no 
foundation  to  build  on  and  are  even  in  doubt 
about  God  Himself.  Such  men  have  not  that 
Fear  of  God  which  delivers  us  from  all  fears, 
but  are  at  the  same  time  timid  and  rash.     Now  as 


1 66  BARDAISAN   AND   HIS  DISCIPLES 

to  the  question  that  Awida  asks,  why  God  has  not 
made  us  so  that  we  could  not  sin  and  so  not  be 
guilty  before  Him,  I  reply  that  if  man  had  been 
so  made  he  would  not  be  himself,  but  a  machine. 
Man  would  be  like  a  harp  on  which  the  per- 
former plays :  the  praise  and  the  blame,  and 
even  the  very  knowledge  of  how  the  instru- 
ment is  being  used,  belong  to  the  musician  and 
not  to  the  harp.  But  God  in  His  kindness 
did  not  wish  to  make  man  thus,  and  so  He 
endowed  men  with  much  greater  freedom  than 
many  things,  equal  in  fact  with  the  angels.  For 
look  (said  he)  at  the  Sun  and  the  Moon  and 
the  Planets,  and  all  the  rest  of  those  things 
which  are  so  much  greater  than  we  in  some 
respects :  to  these  freedom  in  themselves  has 
not  been  given,  but  they  are  all  so  fixed  that 
they  can  only  move  in  the  path  marked  out  for 
them.  The  Sun  cannot  say,  '  I  will  not  appear 
at  the  right  time,'  the  Moon  cannot  say,  '  I  will 
not  wax  and  wane,'  the  Stars  must  rise  and  set 
when  they  are  due,  the  Sea  cannot  help  carrying 
the  ships,  the  Mountains  and  the  Earth  cannot 
help  remaining  each  in  its  place  ;  for  all  these 
things  are  mere  vehicles  of  the  Wisdom  of  God 
that  never  goes  wrong.  If  everything  was  only 
formed  to  be  useful  for  something  else,  for 
whose  benefit  would  the  world  be  made  ?     And 


MAN   IS   NO   MACHINE  1 67 

if  everything  was  only  formed  to  receive  benefits, 
how  would  the  service  of  the  world  be  supplied  ? 
As  it  is,  no  things  are  wholly  detached  one  from 
the  other ;  for  an  absolutely  self-contained  power 
or  thing  would  be  an  Element  which  has  not 
yet  received  its  place  in  the  organisation  of  the 
universe.  The  things  needed  for  human  use 
have  been  placed  within  the  sphere  of  human 
activity.  This  is  what  is  meant  when  we  read 
in  Genesis  that  man  was  made  in  the  image  of 
God.  Out  of  the  Divine  Kindness  it  was  given 
to  man  that  the  things  needful  for  his  life  should 
be  his  servants  during  this  present  dispensation, 
and  that  he  should  conduct  himself  as  he  pleases. 
What  is  in  his  power  to  do,  he  can  do  if  he 
pleases,  and  can  leave  undone  if  he  pleases. 
He  can,  in  a  word,  control  himself  or  fail  to 
control  himself,  and  the  praise  or  blame  which 
his  conduct  deserves  is  really  his  own.  See 
then  (continues  Bardaisan)  how  greatly  the 
goodness  of  God  has  been  exercised  towards 
men,  in  that  so  much  more  freedom  has  been 
given  to  man  than  to  other  things,  that  by  means 
of  it  he  may  control  himself,  and  so  act  the  part 
of  God  and  be  reckoned  with  the  Aneels.  For 
Angels  also  have  freedom  such  as  men  have,  as 
we  may  see  from  the  story  in  Genesis  of  those 
Sons  of  God  who  mingled  themselves  with  the 


1 68  BARDAISAN   AND   HIS  DISCIPLES 

daughters  of  men.  Had  they  not  done  this 
they  would  not  have  fallen  from  their  exalted 
station  and  received  their  due  need  of  punish- 
ment ;  and  similarly  we  may  infer  that  those 
which  did  not  fall  thus,  but  kept  control  of 
themselves  when  exposed  to  temptation,  were 
exalted  and  hallowed  and  became  the  recipients 
of  great  gifts.  For  every  being  that  exists  has 
need  of  the  Lord  of  all,  and  to  His  gifts  there 
is  no  end ;  yet  know  this  (says  Bardaisan), 
that  even  those  things  which  are  governed 
by  fixed  laws,  as  I  said,  are  nevertheless 
not  entirely  deprived  of  all  freedom,  and 
therefore  at  the  last  all  of  them  are  subject  to 
Judgment." 

Then  I  said:  "And  how  are  those  things 
judged  whose  movements  are  fixed  beforehand  ? " 

He  saith  to  me:  "The  powers  of  Nature,  O 
Philip,  are  not  judged  in  respect  of  what  they 
have  been  made  to  do,  but  in  respect  of  what 
they  have  been  entrusted  to  do.  For  the 
Elements  are  not  deprived  of  their  nature  when 
they  are  assigned  their  place  in  the  Universe, 
but  the  vehemence  of  their  peculiar  properties 
is  lessened  by  the  mixture  of  one  with  the  other, 
and  moreover  they  are  under  subjection  to  the 
power  of  Him  who  made  them.  Yet  in  so  far 
as  they  are  in  subjection  they  are  not  brought  to 


THE  COMMANDMENTS  OF  GOD   FEASIBLE         169 

judgment,    but    only    in    respect   of    what    is    in 
their  own  power." 

After  this  Awida  says  to  Bardaisan  :  "  All  this 
that  you  have  said  is  excellent,  but  how  strict 
are   the   commandments    that    have    been    given 

o 

to  men!     They  cannot  be  performed." 

Bardaisan  replied:  "This  is  the  utterance  of 
one  who  does  not  really  wish  to  do  what  is  good, 
one  who  obeys  the  Enemy  of  man  and  is  subject 
to  him.  For  nothing  has  been  commanded  to 
men  but  what  they  are  able  to  do.  There  are 
two  commandments  set  before  us,  very  fit  and 
proper  exercises  for  our  free  nature :  the  one 
is,  that  we  should  abstain  from  everything  that 
is  evil  and  that  we  hate  to  be  done  to  us,  and 
the  other,  that  we  should  do  what  is  good  and 
what  we  like  to  be  done  to  us.  For  what  man 
is  physically  unable  to  keep  from  stealing  or 
lying  or  adultery  or  malicious  false  witness? 
All  these  things  belong  to  the  mind  of  man, 
to  his  disposition,  not  to  his  material  lot.  Even 
if  a  man  be  poor  or  diseased  or  old  or  crippled 
he  can  abstain  from  doing  these  evil  deeds  ;  and 
just  as  he  can  abstain  from  these  things,  so  also 
he  can  love  and  bless  and  speak  truth  and  pray 
for  the  welfare  of  everyone  he  knows.  And  if 
he  be  well  and  have  the  opportunity  of  giving 
something  of  his  own,  he  can  do  so ;  he  can  use 


170  BARDAISAN   AND   HIS  DISCIPLES 

the  material  force  at  his  command  for  the  support 
of  the  weak.  There  is  no  one  who  cannot  do 
this.  In  fact,  the  Commandments  of  God  are 
concerned  with  those  very  matters  which  are 
within  the  range  of  human  control.  We  are 
not  commanded  to  carry  heavy  burdens  of  stone 
or  wood  or  anything  else,  which  only  those  who 
are  strong  of  body  are  able  to  do ; 1  nor  to  build 
towns  and  found  cities,  which  only  kings  are  able 
to  do  ;  nor  to  steer  ships,  which  only  sailors  have 
skill  to  manage ;  nor  to  survey  land  and  divide 
it,  which  only  surveyors  know  how  to  do ;  nor 
to  practise  any  other  of  the  arts,  which  some 
can  do  and  the  rest  are  shut  out  from.  To  us 
through  God's  kindness  such  equable  command- 
ments have  been  given  as  every  living  man  can 
do  with  pleasure ;  for  there  is  no  one  who  does 
not  rejoice  when  he  is  doing  well,  and  no  one 
who  keeps  himself  from  doing  hateful  deeds  who 


1  The  same  argument  is  curiously  repeated  in  the  Acts  of 
Thomas  {Wright  253;  E.  Trans.,  p.  219):  "For  we  are  not 
commanded  to  do  anything  which  we  are  unable  to  do,  nor  to 
take  up  heavy  burdens,  nor  to  build  buildings,  which  carpenters 
build  for  themselves  with  wisdom,  nor  to  practise  the  art  of  hewing 
stones,  which  stone-cutters  know  as  their  craft ;  but  we  are 
commanded  to  do  something  which  we  can  do, — to  refrain  from 
fornication,  the  head  of  all  evils,  and  from  murder,  etc."  The 
ethical  theory  is  the  same,  and  I  venture  to  suggest  that  both 
'  Philip '  and  the  author  of  the  Acts  of  Thomas  derived  it  from 
Bardaisan.  The  question  is  important  to  us  from  its  bearing 
on  the  authorship  of  the  Hymn  of  the  Soul.     See  p.  199. 


THE  WISH   TO   DO  WELL  171 

does  not  feel  at  ease  in  himself — except  indeed 
those  who  have  not  been  created  for  good  and 
who  are  called  Tares.  For  the  Judge  of  all 
is  not  so  unjust  as  to  blame  man  for  what  he 
cannot  do." 

Awida  then  said :  "  Do  you  say  of  these 
things,  O  Bardaisan,  that  they  are  easy  to  do  ? " 

Bardaisan  replies:  "To  him  that  wishes  to  do 
them  I  said,  and  still  say,  that  they  are  easy,  for 
they  are  the  appropriate  course  for  the  mind  of 
a  free  man  to  take  and  for  a  soul  that  has  not 
rebelled  against  those  who  control  it.  But  in 
bodily  activities  many  things  interfere  with  the 
ideal  course,  especially  old  age  and  sickness  and 
poverty." 

Awida  says  :  "  Perhaps  one  may  keep  from 
doing  wrong,  but  who  among  men  is  able  to 
do  good  ? " 

This  Bardaisan  denies,  declaring  that  doing 
good  is  the  natural  action  of  man,  while  doing 
evil  is  really  unnatural  and  the  work  of  the 
Enemy  ;  evil,  in  fact,  is  a  disease.  To  do  good 
gives  real  pleasure ;  the  pleasure  we  may  get 
from  evil  is  as  different  from  this  as  the  quiet 
that  comes  from  exhaustion  and  despair  differs 
from  the  quiet  we  get  in  health.  Desire  is  one 
thing,  Love  is  another ;  Christian  charity  is  not 
mere  good-fellowship.     "The  counterfeit  of  Love 


172  BARDAISAN    AND   HIS   DISCIPLES 

is  Desire.  Desire  may  have  satisfaction  for  an 
hour,  but  it  is  far  from  being  true  Love,  whose 
satisfaction  has  neither  corruption  nor  dissolution 
for  ever." 

The  writer  of  the  Dialogue  then  remarks : 
"  Awida  was  saying  that  men  do  wrong  from 
their  nature  :  if  men  had  not  been  designed  to 
do  wrong,  they  would  not  do  wrong." 

Bardaisan  says:  "  If  all  men  acted  the  same 
way,  and  had  only  one  set  of  opinions,  we  should 
conclude  that  their  actions  were  the  result  of 
their  nature,  and  that  they  had  no  freedom  such 
as  I  have  been  describing  to  you.  But  that  you 
may  understand  what  is  Nature  and  what  is 
Freedom,  I  shall  go  on  to  point  out  to  you  that 
the  Nature  of  man  is  to  be  born,  to  grow  up, 
to  arrive  at  full  age,  to  beget  and  to  grow  old, 
eating  and  drinking,  sleeping  and  waking,  and 
finally  to  die.  These  things,  because  they  are 
part  of  the  Nature  of  man,  belong  to  all  men  ; 
and  not  to  men  only,  but  also  to  everything  that 
has  life,  in  fact,  some  of  them  are  shared  even 
by  plants.  This  belongs  to  the  sphere  of  the 
physical  constitution  of  everything,  whereby  it  is 
made,  created,  and  set  in  the  world,  each  according 
to  its  own  laws.  Furthermore  we  find  the  laws  of 
Nature  are  uniformly  observed  by  the  various 
animals.     The  lion    eats    meat   by    Nature,    and 


HUMAN    BEHAVIOUR   NOT   UNIFORM  1 73 

therefore  all  lions  are  eaters  of  meat ;  the  sheep 
eats  grass  by  Nature,  and  therefore  all  sheep 
are  eaters  of  grass.  All  bees,  all  ants,  store  up 
food  for  themselves  in  the  same  way ;  all 
scorpions  are  ready  to  sting  without  being 
attacked.  All  the  animals  keep  their  own  laws  : 
the  eaters  of  flesh  do  not  become  eaters  of  grass, 
nor  do  the  eaters  of  grass  become  eaters  of  flesh. 
"  But  men  do  not  behave  in  this  way.  In  the 
affairs  of  their  bodies  they  keep  the  laws  of  their 
nature  like  beasts,  but  in  the  affairs  of  their  minds 
they  do  what  they  will,  acting  as  if  they  were 
free  or  at  least  entrusted  with  freedom,  after  the 
image  of  God.  For  some  of  them  eat  meat  and 
no  bread,  some  of  them  distinguish  between 
various  sorts  of  foods,  and  some  of  them  eat 
nothing  that  has  had  in  it  the  breath  of  life. 
There  are  some  who  have  intercourse  with  their 
mothers,  their  sisters,  and  their  daughters  ;  others 
keep  altogether  from  women.  There  are  some 
who  are  fierce  as  lions  and  leopards ;  and  some 
who  hurt  those  who  have  done  them  no  wrong- 
like  the  scorpion  ;  and  some  that  are  driven  like 
sheep  and  do  no  harm  to  those  that  drag  them 
along.  Some  act  with  kindness,  some  with 
justice,  some  with  malice  ;  and  if  any  one  say 
that  he  is  only  acting  in  accordance  with  his 
Nature,  a  little  reflection  will  show  that  this   is 


1/4  BARDAISAN    AND   HIS   DISCIPLES 

not  the  case.  For  there  are  some  who  used  to 
be  adulterers  and  drunkards,  but  when  a  discipline 
of  good  counsel  reached  them  they  have  become 
modest  and  temperate,  and  have  despised  the 
desire  of  their  bodies ;  and  there  are  some  who 
used  to  live  modestly  and  temperately,  but  when 
they  neglected  right  discipline,  they  have  resisted 
the  commands  of  God  and  of  their  teachers,  have 
fallen  from  the  way  of  truth  and  have  become 
adulterers  and  prodigals.  And  some  have  re- 
pented again,  and  have  returned  in  fear  to  the 
truth  in  which  they  stood.  Which,  then,  is  the 
Nature  of  man  ?  For  lo,  they  are  all  different 
one  from  the  other  in  their  way  of  life  and  in 
their  desires,  and  they  that  hold  in  a  certain 
opinion  and  way  of  thinking  resemble  each  other 
in  their  ways.  Nevertheless,  men  who  as  yet 
are  subject  to  the  enticements  of  their  desires 
and  are  led  by  their  passions  wish  to  lay  the 
faults  they  commit  at  the  door  of  their  Maker, 
so  that  they  may  be  considered  faultless  them- 
selves. The  moral  law  does  not  apply  to  that 
which  belongs  to  Nature  :  no  one  is  to  be  blamed 
for  being  tall  or  short,  or  white  or  black,  or  for 
any  bodily  defect,  but  a  man  deserves  blame  for 
thieving  or  lying  or  cursing  and  such  like. 
Whence  it  may  be  seen  that  for  the  things 
which   are    not    in    our   power,    but   come    to  us 


THE   DECREES   OF   FATE  175 

from  Nature,  we  are  not  held  guilty,  nor  can 
we  control  them  ;  but  for  the  things  that  belong 
to  our  freedom,  if  we  do  well  the  verdict  is  for 
us  and  we  are  deserving  of  praise,  while  if  we 
do  evil  we  are  guilty  and  deserve  blame." 

At  this  point  of  the  Dialogue  comes  in  the 
famous  disquisition  on  Fate.  "We  asked  him," 
says  Philip,  "whether  there  are  not  some  who 
say  that  men  are  controlled  by  the  decrees  of 
Fate,  sometimes  in  an  evil  direction,  sometimes 
in  a  good  direction." 

Bardaisan  replies  :  "  I  well  know,  O  Philip,  that 
some  of  those  men  who  are  called  Chaldeans,  and 
others  also,  have  a  love  for  this  very  knowledge 
of  the  Art,  as  I  also  once  had  myself,  for  it  has 
been  said  by  me  elsewhere  that  the  mind  of  man 
yearns  to  know  what  most  folk  do  not  know,  and 
this  these  persons  think  they  do,  holding  that 
all  the  faults  they  commit  and  all  the  good  they 
do  and  all  that  befalls  them  in  wealth  and  in 
poverty,  in  sickness  and  in  health  and  in  bodily 
injury,  come  to  them  from  the  action  of  the  so- 
called  Seven  Stars  or  Planets,  and  are  controlled 
by  their  motions.  There  are  others  who  say  in 
opposition  to  these  either  that  this  Art  is  all  a 
lie  of  the  Chaldeans  or  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  Fate,  and  that  all  things  both  great 
and  small  are   really  in  men's  own   power,   and 


1^6  BARDAISAN    AND   HIS   DISCIPLES 

that  diseases  and  bodily  defects  are  mere  matters 
of  chance.  Others  again  say  that  everything  a 
man  does  he  does  of  his  own  will  through  the 
Freedom  given  to  him,  and  that  defects  and 
diseases  and  other  misfortunes  which  befall  are 
a  punishment  from  God.  Now  in  my  humble 
opinion  (says  Bardaisan),  it  seems  to  me  that 
these  three  opinions  have  each  of  them  some- 
thing that  is  true  and  something  that  is  false. 
They  are  true,  inasmuch  as  men  speak  according 
to  what  they  actually  see  around  them,  and  we 
cannot  help  noticing  how  things  turn  out  adversely 
against  us  ;  but  they  are  false,  inasmuch  as  the 
Wisdom  of  God  is  richer  than  they,  that  Wisdom 
which  established  the  worlds  and  created  man 
and  appointed  the  rulers  of  the  various  powers 
of  the  Universe,  and  gave  to  all  things  a 
responsibility  suitable  to  each  one  of  them.  For 
I  say  that  the  authority  possessed  by  the  various 
orders  of  the  Universe  of  which  I  have  spoken 
— Gods,1  Angels,  Authorities,  Celestial  Rulers, 
Elements,  Men,  and  Beasts — the  authority  given 
to  each  and  all  of  them  is  partial.  There  is  only 
One  who  has  universal  authority.  But  the  others 
have  authority  in  some  matters  and  not  in  others, 
as  I  have  already  said  ;  that  in  so  far  as  they 
have  authority  the  kindness  of  God  may  appear, 

1  Evidently  we  should  read  laldhe,  in  the  plural, 


FATE  GOVERNS  THE  CAREER         177 

and  in  so  far  as  they  have  no  authority  they  may 
know  that  they  have  a  supreme  Lord. 

"There  is  therefore  such  a  thing  as  Fate, 
as  the  Chaldseans  say.  But  that  not  everything 
happens  according  to  our  will  is  obvious  from 
this,  that  most  men  desire  to  be  rich  and  powerful 
and  healthy  and  successful,  and  as  a  matter  of 
fact  only  a  few  are  so,  and  that  not  completely 
nor  during  all  their  life.  Some  have  children 
and  cannot  rear  them,  some  rear  them  only  to 
prove  a  disgrace  and  a  sorrow.  Moreover  men 
are  not  equally  fortunate  in  all  things ;  one 
man  is  rich  as  he  likes  to  be,  but  unhealthy 
as  he  does  not  like  to  be,  and  another  is 
healthy  as  he  likes  to  be,  but  poor  as  he  does 
not  like  to  be.  Some  have  many  things  they 
want  and  a  few  things  they  do  not  want,  and 
some  have  a  few  things  they  want  and  many 
things  they  do  not  want.  And  thus  we  see 
that  wealth  and  honours  and  health  and  sick- 
ness and  children,  and  the  various  objects  of 
desire  are  placed  under  Fate  and  not  under  our 
authority ;  but  in  the  case  of  such  of  these 
things  as  happen  according  to  our  wish  we 
accept  them  willingly  and  are  pleased,  and  when 
they  happen  against  our  wish  we  are  compelled 
to  accept  them  whether  we  like  or  no.  From 
the  things  which  happen  to  us  against  our  wish 

M 


1^8  BARDAISAN   AND   HIS   DISCIPLES 

we  see  how  it  really  stands  with  what  we  do 
wish  :  it  is  not  because  we  will  them  that  we 
get  them,  but  they  happen  as  they  happen,  and 
with  some  of  the  things  we  are  pleased  and 
with  some  of  them  not.  And  so  we  men  are 
found  to  be  governed  by  Nature  equally,  by 
Fate  diversely,  and  by  our  Freedom  as  each 
man  likes. 

"  But  now  we  will  go  on  to  show  that 
Fate  and  its  dominion  does  not  extend  over 
everything.  What  we  call  '  Fate '  is  really 
the  arrangement  of  the  course  marked  out  to 
the  heavenly  Powers  and  to  the  Elements  by 
God.  According  to  this  arrangement  the 
various  faculties  are  assorted  as  they  come  down 
into  the  soul  and  the  various  souls  are  assorted 
as  they  come  down  into  the  bodies,  and  the 
agency  by  which  this  sorting  is  done  is  called 
the  Fate  and  the  Nativity  of  the  congeries 
out  of  which  the  individual  is  evolved,  all  to 
help  on  that  design  which  God  in  His  mercy 
and  grace  has  deigned  to  help  and  continues 
to  do  so  until  the  consummation  of  all  things. 

"The  body  therefore  is  governed  by  Nature, 
and  the  soul  suffers  and  perceives  with  it,  and 
Fate  cannot  help  or  hinder  the  body  against 
its  Nature.  Fate  cannot  give  a  man  or  woman 
children   at   a   time   when    they   are    too   young 


NATURE   AND   FATE  1 79 

or  too  old  by  Nature  to  have  children.  Nor 
can  Fate  keep  a  man's  body  alive  without 
eating  and  drinking,  nor  even  when  a  man  has 
food  and  drink  can  Fate  keep  a  man  so  that 
he  shall  not  die,  for  these  and  many  other 
things  belong  to  Nature.  But  when  the  condi- 
tions of  Nature  are  complied  with,  within  this 
limited  field  Fate  comes  into  play,  and  it  makes 
things  to  differ  one  with  the  other,  sometimes 
helping  and  sometimes  hindering  the  ordinary 
operation  of  Nature.  Thus  from  Nature  comes 
the  growth  of  the  body  and  its  arrival  at 
maturity,  but  apart  from  Nature  and  by  Fate 
come  sicknesses  and  defects  in  the  body.  From 
Nature  comes  the  natural  inclination  of  man  and 
woman,  but  from  Fate  comes  repugnance  and 
also  unnatural  lusts.  From  Nature  comes 
birth  and  children,  but  from  Fate  comes  mis- 
carriage and  other  failures.  From  Nature  there 
is  sufficiency  in  moderation  for  all,  but  from  Fate 
comes  on  the  one  hand  need  and  distress  for 
food,  and  on  the  other  extravagance  and  un- 
necessary luxury.  Nature  requires  that  elders 
should  be  the  judges  of  youths,  and  wise  men  of 
fools,  and  that  the  strong  should  rule  the  weak 
and  brave  men  command  cowards ;  but  Fate 
makes  children  to  be  the  chiefs  of  elders  and 
fools  the  chiefs  of  wise  men,  and  that  in  time  of 


180  BARDAISAN    AND   HIS   DISCIPLES 

war  weak  men  command  the  strong  and  cowards 
command  the  brave.  Know  this  especially  (con- 
tinued Bardaisan),  that  whenever  the  course  of 
Nature  is  disturbed,  the  disturbance  comes  from 
this  that  I  call  Fate ;  and  the  reason  of  it  is 
that  the  various  Powers  over  which  Fate  is  set 
are  contrary  one  to  the  other,  and  some  of  them 
— those  which  we  say  are  on  the  right  hand 
— help  Nature  and  add  to  its  beauty,  when 
the  course  of  things  is  in  their  favour  and  they 
are  in  the  ascendant  in  the  heavenly  Sphere, 
in  their  own  portions ;  while  others — which  we 
say  are  on  the  left — are  malignant,  and  when 
they  are  in  the  ascendant  they  are  opposed  to 
Nature,  and  they  injure  not  men  only,  but 
beasts  and  plants  and  crops  from  time  to  time, 
as  well  as  the  seasons  and  fountains  of  water, 
everything,  in  fact,  that  is  in  Nature  which 
is  under  their  control.  And  it  is  because  of 
these  divisions  and  contrarieties  between  the 
Powers  that  some  men  have  supposed  that  the 
world  is  governed  without  Providence,  because 
they  do  not  know  that  this  contrariety  and 
division  of  the  Powers  and  their  consequent 
conquest  and  defeat  are  the  result  of  the  free 
constitution  that  was  given  them  from  God,  that 
these  created  things  also  by  their  own  delegated 
powers  might  either  conquer  or  be  defeated. 


FATE  DOES  NOT  GOVERN  THE  CHARACTER   l8l 

11  As  we  have  seen  that  Fate  destroys  the 
work  of  Nature,  so  may  we  see  the  Freedom 
of  man  repelling  Fate  and  destroying  its  work  ; 
yet  not  in  everything,  just  as  Fate  cannot  in 
everything  repel  Nature.  For  these  three  things, 
Nature,  Fate  and  Freedom,  must  be  kept  in 
being,  until  the  appointed  course  be  fulfilled 
and  the  measure  and  the  number  of  the  days 
be  accomplished,  and  all  Beings  and  Natures 
have  had  their  full  existence." 

Here  Bardaisan  stops  for  a  moment,  having 
come  to  a  pause  in  his  description  of  the  forces 
by  which  all  individuals  are  swayed.  According 
to  him,  Nature  determines  the  general  conditions 
of  each  individual's  existence,  Fate  determines 
the  career,  while  the  Freedom  (or,  as  we  say, 
the  Free-will)  of  the  individual  is  chiefly  active 
in  determining  his  character. 

Awida  now  begins  to  be  persuaded.  He 
confesses  himself  satisfied  that  it  is  not  from 
Nature  that  a  man  does  wrong,  and  he  sees 
that  all  men  are  not  equally  subjected  to  the 
same  influences.  Now  he  asks  if  it  can  be 
proved  that  it  is  not  from  Fate  that  men  do 
wrong.  "If  this  can  be  shown,"  he  says, 
11  we  must  believe  that  a  man  really  possesses 
Freedom,  and  that  by  Nature  he  is  brought  to 
what  is  good  and  warned  against  what  is   bad  ; 


1 82  BARDAISAN    AND   HIS   DISCIPLES 

and  so  he  is  justly  liable  to  judgment  at  the  last 
day." 

Bardaisan  replies :  "  From  the  fact  that  all 
men  are  not  equally  subjected  to  the  same 
influences  you  are  persuaded  that  it  is  not  from 
their  common  Nature  that  men  do  wrong.  Well 
then,  you  will  be  obliged  to  agree  that  it  is  not 
entirely  from  their  Fate  that  they  act  wrongly 
if  we  can  show  you  that  the  decree  of  the  Fates 
and  Powers  do  not  equally  affect  all  men,  but 
that  we  really  have  some  Freedom  in  ourselves 
not  to  serve  physical  Nature  and  not  to  be 
moved  by  the  control  of  the  heavenly  Powers." 

Awida  says  :  "  Show  me  this  and  I  will  believe 
and  do  whatever  you  tell  me." 

The  reply  of  Bardaisan  was  in  ancient  times 
the  most  famous  part  of  the  whole  Dialogue,  and 
in  a  Greek  dress  it  was  borrowed  wholesale  by 
Eusebius  and  by  the  author  of  the  Clementine 
Recognitions.  But  we  need  not  linger  very  long 
over  its  curious  erudition,  except  so  far  as 
concerns  his  descriptions  of  the  "new  race"  of 
Christians.  Speaking  as  an  astrologer  to  an 
astrologer,  Bardaisan  reminds  Awida  that 
according  to  the  rules  of  the  Art  each  in- 
dividual's  Fate  follows  from  the  configuration 
of  the  heavenly  bodies  at  the  time  of  birth. 
But  he  runs   through    the   nations    of  the    earth 


THE  VARIED  CUSTOMS  OF   NATIONS  1 83 

from  the  Chinese  on  the  east  to  the  Britons 
on  the  west.  Each  nation  has  its  own  customs 
of  marriage,  of  social  life,  of  morals.  But  the 
inhabitants  of  these  various  countries  are  not 
all  born  at  the  same  time,  at  the  same  con- 
figuration  of  the   heavens.     It    is   therefore   not 

o 

their  Fate  that  compels  the  several  nations  each 
to  keep  their  own  customs  and  to  avoid  those 
of  other  people.  For  instance,  says  Bardaisan, 
in  the  whole  of  Media  all  men  when  they  die, 
even  while  life  is  still  remaining  in  them,  are 
cast  to  the  dogs  and  the  dogs  eat  the  dead  of 
the  whole  of  Media ; '  but  we  cannot  say  that 
all  the  Medians  are  born  when  the  Moon  is 
in  conjunction  with  Mars  in  the  constellation 
Cancer  during  the  day  below  the  Earth,  as 
ought  to  be  the  case  by  the  rules  of  Astrology 
for  those  who  are  to  be  eaten  by  dogs.  The 
varied  customs  of  the  people  of  the  earth  prove 
that  Fate  does  not  act  in  the  mechanical  way 
that  the  Astrologers  believe :  the  customs  of 
the  various  countries,  whether  indigenous  or 
forced  upon  the  inhabitants  by  foreign  rulers, 
are  the  result  of  human   Free-will  and  are   not 


1  See  Strabo  xi  517,  quoted  by  E.  R.  Bevan,  House  of  Seleucus 
i  290.  The  reason  of  the  custom  was  of  course  to  prevent  the 
sacred  elements  of  Earth,  Air,  Fire,  and  Water,  from  being  polluted 
by  a  dead  body. 


1 84  BARDAISAN   AND   HIS  DISCIPLES 

due  to  the  operations  of  Fate.  It  was  not  Fate, 
but  the  decree  of  King  Abgar  when  he  was 
converted  to  Christianity,  that  stopped  the 
people  of  Edessa  from  mutilating  themselves  in 
honour  of  Atargatis.  And  so  Bardaisan  comes 
at  last  to  his  own  Church. 

"What  then,"  he  says,  "shall  we  say  of  the 
new  race  of  us  Christians,  whom  in  every 
country  and  in  every  region  the  Messiah  esta- 
blished at  His  coming?  For  lo,  all  of  us 
wherever  we  be  are  called  Christians  by  the 
one  Name  of  the  Messiah ;  and  on  one  day, 
the  first  of  the  week,  we  assemble  together,  and 
on  specified  days  we  abstain  from  food.  And 
of  these  national  customs,  our  brethren  abstain 
from  all  that  are  contrary  to  their  profession. 
Parthian  Christians  do  not  take  two  wives, 
Jewish  Christians  are  not  circumcised.  Our 
sisters  among  the  Bactrians  do  not  practise 
promiscuity  with  strangers.  Our  Persian 
brethren  do  not  take  their  daughters  to  wife ; 
our  Median  brethren  do  not  desert  their  dying 
relatives  or  bury  them  alive  or  throw  them  to 
the  dogs.  Nor  do  Christians  in  Edessa  kill 
their  wives  or  sisters  that  commit  fornication, 
as  the  heathen  Edessenes  do,  but  they  keep 
apart  from  them  and  commit  them  to  the 
judgment     of    God.        Nor     do     Christians     in 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  SOCIAL  CUSTOM  1 85 

Hatra  stone  thieves.  But  in  whatever  place 
they  are,  neither  do  the  national  laws  separate 
them  from  the  Law  of  the  Messiah,  nor  does 
the  Fate  arranged  by  the  Powers  compel  them 
to  make  use  of  what  is  impure  to  them.  Yet 
sickness  and  health,  and  riches  and  poverty, 
matters  that  are  not  within  their  Free-will, 
these  befall  them  wherever  they  are.  For  as 
the  Free-will  of  men  is  not  regularly  governed 
by  the  compulsion  of  the  Seven  Planets,  and 
even  when  so  governed  is  able  to  withstand 
them,  so  also  it  remains  true  that  man  as  we 
see  him  cannot  easily  get  free  from  the  orders 
of  his  governing  influences,  for  he  is  a  slave  and 
put  in  subjection. 

"  To  sum  up,  if  we  were  really  free  to  do  every- 
thing, we  should  be  everything  ;  and  if  we  were 
wholly  without  power  to  act,  we  should  be  mere 
machines  in  the  hand  of  others.  But  when  God 
so  wills,  everything  can  happen  without  disturb- 
ance, for  His  great  and  holy  Will  nothing  can 
hinder.  Those  who  think  they  can  resist  are 
in  a  position  not  of  strength,  but  of  evil  and  of 
error,  and  such  a  position  may  stand  for  a  short 
time,  because  He  is  kind  and  permits  all  Natures 
to  stand  where  they  do  and  to  be  governed  by 
their  own  will,  yet  bound  by  what  has  been  done 
and  by  the  constitution  of  things  that  was  made 


1 86  BARDAISAN    AND   HIS   DISCIPLES 

for  their  help.  For  by  the  order  and  governance 
that  has  been  given  to  things  and  the  mixture 
of  one  principle  with  another  the  vehemence  of 
the  various  Natures  is  weakened,  so  that  they 
do  not  altogether  injure  nor  are  they  altogether 
injured,  as  they  used  to  injure  and  be  injured 
before  the  creation  of  the  world.  And  there 
will  come  a  time  when  this  power  of  injury 
which  still  subsists  in  them  will  be  brought  to 
an  end  through  the  doctrine  which  is  coming  to 
pass  at  the  new  mixture.  And  in  the  esta- 
blishment of  that  new  world,  all  the  evil 
motions  will  cease  and  all  rebellions  will  come 
to  an  end ;  the  foolish  will  be  persuaded  and 
deficiencies  will  be  filled  up,  and  there  will  be 
peace  and  tranquillity  by  the  gift  of  Him  who 
is  Lord  of  all  Natures." 

In  this  long  abstract  of  the  argument  of  the 
De  Fato  I  have  purposely  given  a  very  free 
translation,  or  rather  paraphrase,  because  our 
object  has  been  to  follow  the  thought  more  than 
the  actual  language.  It  is  difficult  to  realise 
how  an  ancient  work  of  this  kind  appeals  to 
other  people ;  but  to  myself,  coming  from  the 
study  of  ordinary  Syriac  ecclesiastical  literature, 
the  first  impression  made  is  of  the  independence 
of  the  writer's  mind.      It  gives  me  the  impression 


THE   MENTAL   ATTITUDE   OF   BARDAISAN  1 87 

of  being  the  thoughts  of  one  who  had  learned 
to  think  for  himself,  one  who  had  read  much 
and  thought  much,  and  who  was  not  content  at 
the  end  merely  to  repeat  the  formulas  of  a  school. 
Bardaisan  brings  out  of  the  storehouse  of  his 
learning  things  new  and  old,  and  his  imagina- 
tion has  woven  them  into  a  new  and  inde- 
pendent pattern.  Such  work  is  of  a  different 
order  from  that  of  men  whose  whole  achieve- 
ment is  to  reproduce  as  much  of  the  philosophy 
of  someone  else  —  of  Aristotle  or  of  Proclus 
— as  they  have  been  able  to  understand. 

The  next  reflexion  of  the  student  of  ecclesi- 
astical history  will  be  that  the  Syriac-speaking 
Church  was  not  able  to  retain  Bardaisan  in  its 
communion.  You  have  heard  the  argument  of 
the  De  Fato,  and  you  are  in  a  position  to 
appreciate  the  ideas  which  the  School  of 
Bardaisan  cherished  "on  God,  on  Nature,  and 
on  human  Life."  That  the  De  Fato  really 
comes  from  the  School  of  Bardaisan  is  certain, 
whether  or  no  Bardaisan  had  a  share  in  the 
actual  literary  composition  of  it  ;  and  I  am  quite 
sure  that  it  gives  a  far  truer  picture  of  the  spirit 
which  animated  Bardaisan  and  his  disciples 
than  the  spiteful  polemic  of  S.  Ephraim  or  the 
unintelligently  repeated  catchwords  which  are 
echoed     by    various    late    chroniclers.       But     in 


1 88  BARDAISAN   AND   HIS  DISCIPLES 

that  case  we  must  feel  it  a  pity  that  the  Church 
made  Bardaisan  into  a  heretic.  The  whole 
Dialogue  is  pervaded  by  an  admirable  spirit. 
It  is  marked  by  reverence  towards  the  Lord  of 
all  things  and  by  gratitude  for  His  benefits,  by 
cheerful  obedience  to  the  ordinary  discipline  of 
the  Church,  by  courtesy  towards  opponents,  and 
above  all  by  a  firm  faith  that  the  Judge  of  all 
the  earth  will  not  do  injustice.  Less  admirable 
perhaps  from  the  narrower  ecclesiastical  stand- 
point is  the  firm  and  clear  determination  not 
to  do  violence  to  the  facts  of  nature  and  of  life. 
The  writer  refuses  to  shut  his  eyes  to  what  he 
sees  around  him  at  the  bidding  of  a  theory, 
and  his  field  of  vision  was  not  limited  to 
Church  History  and  the  Old  Testament.  It 
was  doubtless  Bardaisan's  independence  of  mind 
that  led  to  his  excommunication.  We  dare  not 
press  the  details  of  the  story  of  how  Bishop 
'Aqai  "warned"  him,  but  it  is  easy  to  imagine 
the  scene.  We  may  fancy  the  difficulties  which 
Bardaisan's  learned  theories  may  have  caused 
when  caught  up  by  ignorant  brethren.  We  may 
fancy  the  bishop  waiting  on  the  philosopher,  a 
man  great  both  by  birth  and  by  achievement, 
and  requesting  him  to  modify  his  views.  May 
we  not  go  on  to  imagine  that  Bardaisan  heard 
him  out,  listening  at  first  with  amused  courtesy, 


PHILOSOPHY  EXCOMMUNICATED  189 

and  then  when  the  Churchman  proved  deaf 
alike  to  explanation  and  to  reasoning,  accepting 
without  much  searching  of  heart  the  sentence 
of  ostracism  from  the  Christians'  conventicle  ? 
This  is  mere  fancy  ;  but  in  sober  fact  it  was  a 
regrettable  incident.  We  know  next  to  nothing 
of  the  history  of  the  School  of  Bardaisan,  save 
that  Rabbula  induced  the  remaining  members 
to  submit  to  the  Church,  some  century  and  a 
quarter  after.  By  that  time  the  mischief  had 
been  done.  We  can  see  how  grievously  the 
Syriac- speaking  Church  suffered  by  failure  to 
attract  and  to  bear  with  the  best  scientific 
intellect  of  the  time.  It  is  a  foolish  and 
cowardly  policy  for  a  Church  to  be  tolerant  to 
superstition  and  rigid  towards  reverent  specula- 
tion. The  Syriac-speaking  Church  ultimately 
sank  into  formal  heresies,  while  the  great  mass 
of  the  populations  of  the  East  adopted  the  new 
faith  of  Islam ;  I  cannot  help  wondering  how 
much  of  the  collapse  may  have  had  its  roots 
in  intellectual  cowardice. 

Life  and  progress  mean  change,  the  rejection  of 
what  is  worn-out  or  unsuitable  as  well  as  mere 
development;  the  mere  "keeping  one's  wicket 
up,"  to  adopt  the  phrase  championed  by  the 
Bishop  of  Worcester,  can  only  issue  in 
stagnation.     And  the  story  of  Bardaisan  is  being 


190  BARDAISAN   AND   HIS   DISCIPLES 

enacted  over  again  just  outside  our  own  doors. 
It  has  been  impossible  to  study  Bardaisan's 
career  without  thinking  of  the  case  of  the  Abbe 
Loisy.  The  parallel  is  all  the  closer  if  there  be 
anything  in  the  tradition  which  puts  Bardaisan 
into  Holy  Orders.  Moreover,  both  writers  are 
known  for  their  treatises  against  heretics  : 
Bardaisan  wrote  against  Marcion  and  HEvangile 
et  I Eglise  is  a  defence  of  the  Catholic  Church 
against  the  Protestantism  of  Dr  Harnack.  But 
the  inner  resemblance  is  independent  of  these 
external  circumstances.  The  essential  point  of 
resemblance  is  that  M.  Loisy,  like  Bardaisan, 
takes  account  of  the  Science  which  exists  out- 
side the  narrow  bounds  of  ecclesiastical  study. 
He  recognises  its  validity  and  its  claim  to  judge 
those  portions  of  ecclesiastical  tradition  which 
lie  within  its  own  sphere.  To  recognise  this 
is  to  recognise  that  part  of  the  traditional 
presentation  of  Christianity  and  part  of  its 
traditional  defences  must  be  modified  from  time  to 
time  if  we  are  to  retain  the  chief  point,  namely 
that  our  philosophy  of  religion  shall  be  firmly  based 
on  observed  facts  and  not  erected  on  a  flimsy 
scaffolding  to  correspond  with  some  ideal  plane, 
a  scaffolding  liable  to  collapse  when  the  supports 
are  removed  or  undermined.  Bardaisan  was 
declared  a  heretic,  M.  Loisy  has  been  condemned 


CONSTRAINING   FORCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY        191 

by  the  Holy  Office  ;  may  the  intellectual  paralysis 
which  overspread  the  Syriac  Churches  be  averted 
from  our  own  Church  and  the  Church  of  Rome ! 

There  is  one  thing  in  conclusion  upon  which 
I  should  be  glad  to  lay  stress.  The  Dialogue 
On  Fate  is  in  form  a  dispute  between  a  Christian 
and  an  unconverted  heathen :  the  question  of 
how  the  grace  of  God  reaches  the  individual  is 
not  discussed,  nor  was  any  opinion  dealing  with 
this  subject  included  among  the  heresies  of 
Bardaisan.  The  main  question  actually  in 
dispute  between  Bardaisan  and  Awida  was 
whether  such  a  thing  as  Free  -  will  in  man 
exists,  and  what  was  the  sphere  of  its  activity. 
It  is  a  question  still  discussed,  though  I  suppose 
the  advocates  of  Free-will  tend  to  become  more 
diffident.  What,  then,  is  the  argument  upon 
which  Bardaisan  is  not  afraid  to  rely  ?  Bardaisan's 
theory  is  that  the  sphere  of  Free-will  is  mainly 
restricted  to  the  building  up  of  the  individual 
character,  and  his  argument  for  the  existence 
of  this  moral  Free  -  will  is  that  the  Christian 
Faith  produces  in  those  who  embrace  it  a 
corresponding  change  of  character,  a  change 
that  can  be  seen  and  known  of  all  men.  Can 
we,  dare  we,  use  that  argument  now  ?  I  do  not 
propose  to  follow  up  the  philosophical  conclusions 


192  BARDAISAN    AND   HIS   DISCIPLES 

involved,  if  the  facts  be  granted.  I  can  only 
speak  as  a  student  of  ancient  history.  What 
I  wish  to  point  out  is  that  the  victory  which 
overcame  the  ancient  world  actually  meant  a 
change  in  the  individual's  life,  and  that  it  was 
the  mark  of  a  living  faith  to  influence  the 
conduct.  Whatever  may  be  the  philosophical 
explanation,  the  member  of  the  ancient  Christian 
Church — Bardaisan  the  heretic,  as  much  as  Justin 
Martyr — really  felt  within  him  a  new  and  con- 
straining force.  That  force  was  not  possessed, 
or  not  possessed  to  anything  like  the  same  extent, 
by  the  opponents  and  rivals  of  Christianity.  Half 
the  jealousy  with  which  the  official  world  regarded 
the  Church  was  due  to  the  consciousness  that  the 
source  from  which  the  Church  drew  its  life  and 
its  force  lay  outside  and  independent  of  the 
State.  What  gave  Christianity  this  force  is 
another  question,  but  the  early  Christians  were 
well  aware  of  it,  and  we  shall  never  understand 
the  history  of  the  rise  of  Christianity  unless  we 
remember  its  existence.  That  inward  force  is 
the  real,  indispensable  Note  of  the  true  Church  : 
the  future  will  belong  to  the  Church  only  if  she 
is  able  to  supply  the  constraining  power  over 
individual  conduct,  to  the  evident  effects  of 
which  Bardaisan  was  not  afraid  to  appeal. 


LECTURE    VI 

THE    ACTS    OF    JUDAS    THOMAS   AND    THE    HYMN    OF 
THE    SOUL 

The  art  of  telling  a  tale  is  perhaps  the  most 
wonderful  of  all  human  inventions,  and  the  East 
has  ever  been  famous  for  story-telling.  We  shall 
therefore  not  be  surprised  to  find  that  the  most 
striking  and  original  piece  of  Syriac  Literature 
is  a  Novel.  By  a  curious  chance,  which  I  suspect 
would  prove  to  be,  if  we  knew  more,  less  a 
chance  than  an  intimate  literary  connexion,  this 
Novel  contains  within  it  an  independent  Poem 
which  itself  is  the  most  beautiful  production  not 
of  Syriac  Literature  only,  but  I  venture  to  assert 
of  all  the  literary  activity  of  the  early  Church. 
The  Novel  is  the  Acts  of  Judas  Thomas,  the 
Apostle  of  India  :  the  Poem  is  known  to  modern 
scholars  as  the  Hymn  of  the  Soul. 

The  work  called  the  Acts  of  Thomas  in  one 
form  or  another  has  long-  been  familiar  to  hagio- 
graphers  and  ecclesiologists.  When  you  see  a 
stained  glass  window   with   S.  Thomas  depicted 

N  193 


194  THE  ACTS  OF  JUDAS  THOMAS 

in  it,  he  will  probably  be  represented  with  a 
spear  in  his  hand.  That  is  because  according 
to  these  Acts  the  apostle  was  martyred  with 
spears.  In  a  sense,  therefore,  the  story  of  S. 
Thomas  is  no  new  discovery.  But  it  is  only 
lately  that  it  has  been  recovered  in  approxi- 
mately its  original  form,  and  it  is  only  lately 
that  it  has  been  recognised  as  a  story  which  is 
Syriac  in  origin.  Even  now  the  work  is  familiar 
only  to  professed  scholars :  Wright's  English 
translation  is  out  of  print,  and  the  outside  world 
knows  very  little  of  a  tale  that  can  challenge 
comparison  with  the  Pilgrims  Progress. 

It  will  be  convenient,  before  entering  more 
into  detail  about  the  various  problems  suggested 
by  the  Acts  of  Thomas,  to  give  a  short  abstract 
of  the  story  which  forms  the  framework  of  the 
book.1 

I.  At  the  beginning  we  are  told  how  the  Twelve  Apostles 
divided  the  countries  of  the  earth  among  themselves  by  lot, 
and  that  the  lot  which  fell  to  Judas  Thomas — Judas  the  Twin 
— was  India.  But  Judas  Thomas  did  not  wish  to  go  and 
preach  to  the  Indians,  so  our  Lord  appeared  to  an  Indian 
merchant  named  Habban,  a  servant  of  King  Gundaphar,  and 
sold  Thomas  to  him  as  a  slave.  Thomas  and  Habban  go  off 
by  sea  and  disembark  at  the  town  of  Sandaruk.     Here  they 


1  A  complete  English  Translation  is  given  in  Wright's  Apocry- 
phal Acts,  vol.  ii,  pp.  146-298.  What  is  given  here  is  taken  mainly 
from  my  own  book  Early  Christianity  outside  the  Roman  Empire, 
p.  64  ff. 


THE  ACTS  OF  JUDAS  THOMAS  1 95 

find  that  the  King  of  the  place  is  making  a  great  feast  to 
celebrate  his  only  daughter's  marriage,  and  they  go  in  with 
the  rest  to  the  public  feast.  At  the  feast  Thomas  sings  a 
curious  Hymn.  He  also  prophecies  the  violent  death  of  one 
of  the  guests  who  had  behaved  rudely  to  him,  an  event  which 
comes  to  pass  that  very  night.  The  King  hears  of  this  and 
forces  Thomas  to  go  in  and  pray  over  the  bride ;  he  does  so 
and  then  departs.  But  when  the  bride  and  bridegroom  are 
alone  our  Lord  appears  to  them  in  the  likeness  of  Thomas 
and  persuades  them  both  to  a  life  of  virginity.  In  the  end 
the  King  also  is  converted,  and  the  young  people  join  S. 
Thomas  in  India. 

II.  Meanwhile  Thomas  and  Habban  had  gone  on  to  King 
Gundaphar  in  India,  and  Thomas  is  set  to  build  a  palace  for 
the  King.  To  this  story,  which  forms  a  complete  episode  by 
itself,  we  shall  return  later. 

III.  After  the  palace-building  episode  Judas  Thomas  brings 
back  to  life  a  youth  who  had  been  killed  by  a  devil  in  the 
form  of  a  black  snake.  In  this  story,  as  in  some  of  the  others, 
the  prayers  and  exhortations  of  Thomas  are  given  at  consider- 
able length,  so  that  a  mere  description  of  the  action  by  no 
means  exhausts  the  interest  of  the  story. 

IV.  Next  an  ass's  colt,  of  the  stock  that  served  Balaam  the 
prophet,  comes  and  speaks  and  directs  the  apostle  to  a  certain 
city.  At  the  gate  of  the  city  the  colt  falls  down  and  dies, 
having  performed  its  mission. 

V.  In  the  city  Thomas  delivers  a  beautiful  woman  from  the 
attacks  of  a  devil.  The  woman  is  baptized  and  she  receives 
the  Communion. 

VI.  During  the  ceremony  a  young  man's  hand  withers  and 
he  confesses  that  he  had  killed  a  woman  who  would  not  live 
a  life  of  virginity  with  him.  On  his  repentance  he  brings  Judas 
Thomas  to  the  dead  woman's  body,  and  at  his  prayer  she  is 
restored  to  life.  She  then  describes  the  torments  of  the  un- 
chaste that  she  had  seen  in  hell,  and  the  incident  closes  with 
an  exhortation  from  the  apostle. 


196  THE  ACTS   OF  JUDAS  THOMAS 

VII.  After  these  things,  while  the  Apostle  is  preaching  in 
India,  the  General  of  King  Mazdai,  named  Siftir,  comes 
beseeching  him  to  free  his  wife  and  daughter  from  evil  and 
lascivious  devils.  Judas  Thomas  leaves  his  converts  under 
the  care  of  the  deacon  Xanthippus  and  goes  with  the  General. 
On  the  way  the  horses  of  their  chariot  break  down,  but  four 
wild  asses  come  up  to  be  harnessed  in  their  stead,  and  with 
their  help  the  devils  are  driven  out  and  the  women  healed. 

VIII.  Soon  after  this  a  noble  lady,  by  name  Mygdonia,  the 
wife  of  Karish,  a  kinsman  of  King  Mazdai,  is  converted  by 
Judas  Thomas  to  the  life  of  virginity.  Karish  is  in  despair ; 
and  when  his  personal  influence  fails  to  move  Mygdonia,  he 
goes  and  complains  to  the  King,  by  whose  orders  Thomas  is 
arrested  at  the  house  of  Sifilr  the  General.  The  apostle  is 
scourged  and  sent  to  prison,  where  he  sings  that  Hymn  to 
which  we  shall  return  further  on.  Mygdonia  remains  firm 
and  secretly  visits  Thomas  in  the  prison  with  her  nurse 
Narqia :  there  he  baptizes  them  and  celebrates  the  Eucharist. 
In  the  meanwhile  King  Mazdai  and  Karish,  who  regard  the 
conversion  of  Mygdonia  as  due  to  magic  and  enchantment, 
agree  to  let  Thomas  go  if  he  will  tell  her  to  be  as  she  was 
before.  Thomas  warns  them  that  it  will  be  useless,  and  that 
neither  his  persuasion  nor  tortures  would  change  her  new 
spirit.  This  is  proved  to  be  the  case,  for  Mygdonia  refuses 
to  listen  to  the  Apostle  when  he  pretends  to  counsel  her  to 
go  back  to  her  husband.  After  this  Thomas  returns  to  the 
house  of  Siftir  the  General  and  baptizes  him  and  his  family, 
and  gives  them  also  the  Eucharist :  at  the  same  time  Mygdonia 
converts  Tertia,  the  wife  of  King  Mazdai.  Mazdai  now 
becomes  seriously  angry  and  drags  Thomas  off  to  prison 
again,  but  on  the  way  he  converts  Wizan,  the  King's  son. 
In  the  prison  the  Apostle  makes  his  final  address,  beginning 
with  the  Lord's  Prayer,  which  is  quoted  in  full.  Manashar, 
Wizan's  wife  (who  has  just  been  healed  of  a  long  sickness  by 
our  Lord  Himself,  who  appeared  to  her  in  the  form  of  a  youth), 
joins  them  in   the  prison,  and  the  Apostle  baptizes  Wizan, 


THE   ACTS  OF  JUDAS  THOMAS  1 97 

Manashar,  and  Tertia.  In  the  morning  Thomas  is  brought  out 
and  condemned  to  death  by  the  King :  he  is  taken  outside  the 
town  and  after  a  short  prayer  is  speared  by  four  soldiers. 
Before  his  death  he  had  ordained  Sifilr  and  Wizan,  and  the 
converts  continue  in  the  faith  after  having  been  encouraged 
by  a  vision  of  the  ascended  Judas  Thomas. 

The  bones  of  the  Apostle  were  secretly  taken  away  to  the 
"  West "  by  one  of  the  brethren,  but  a  long  time  afterwards  the 
dust  from  the  grave  charms  away  a  devil  from  one  of  King 
Mazdai's  sons,  whereupon  the  King  also  believes  and  prays 
Sifur  and  the  brethren  for  forgiveness. 

Such  is  the  tale  of  S.  Thomas.  It  is  very- 
likely  that  some  of  the  details  of  the  legend  are 
older  than  the  book  of  Acts,  of  which  I  have 
just  given  a  short  summary.  The  reputed  bones 
of  Thomas  the  Apostle  were  preserved  at  Edessa, 
at  least  from  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century 
onwards,  and  some  story  of  their  adventures  had 
doubtless  grown  up  round  the  shrine. 

One  of  the  most  curious  features  of  the  tale 
has  lately  been  investigated  by  Dr  Rendel 
Harris  in  his  brilliant  study  of  the  influence 
of  the  Heavenly  Twins  on  Christian  legend.1 
We  all  know  that  Thomas  means  "twin,"  and 
the  Syriac  tradition  had  it  that  the  name  of 
the  apostle  whom  we  call  Thomas  was  Judas 
the  Twin.  Consequently  the  earliest  Syriac 
text  of  the  Gospels  calls  that  Judas  who  was 
not    Iscariot    (Joh.    xiv    22)   by   the   same    name 

1  J.  R.  Harris,  The  Dioscuri  in  the  Christian  Legends,  pp.  20-41. 


198  THE  ACTS  OF  JUDAS  THOMAS 

as  the  hero  of  our  tale,  viz.  Judas  Thomas. 
The  surprising  circumstance  is  that  throughout 
these  Acts  this  Judas  Thomas,  the  Apostle,  . 
is  assumed  to  be  the  twin-brother  of  our  Lord 
Himself.  Not  only  do  men  and  women  in 
these  Acts  mistake  the  one  for  the  other,  but 
the  very  devils  and  wild  beasts  salute  the 
Apostle  as  "Twin  of  the  Messiah."1  No 
wonder  that  some  of  our  MSS.  have  obliterated 
the  title ! 

It  was  this  strange  title  and  the  ideas  under- 
lying it  that  Dr  Harris  investigated,  and  I 
venture  to  think  we  may  accept  his  main  con- 
clusion, which  is  that  the  Christian  figures  of 
our  Lord  and  S.  Thomas  have  displaced  a 
heathen  cult  of  Twins,  one  mortal  and  the 
other  immortal,  like  Castor  and  Pollux,  like 
the  Evening  Star  that  sets  and  disappears  and 
the  Morning  Star  that  remains  in  the  sky  until 
the  perfect  day  has  dawned.  Dr  Harris  goes  on 
to  find  the  genesis  of  several  curious  features 
in  the  story  of  S.  Thomas  as  told  in  the  Acta 
Thomae.  For  instance,  the  hypothesis  that  the 
Christian  hero  has  taken  over  the  attributes  of 
the  Dioscuri,  the  Great  Twin  Brethren,  may 
be  used  to  explain  why  the  apostle  is  re- 
presented as  a  stone-cutter  as  well  as  a  carpenter, 

1   Wright  197,  208  (E.  Transl.,  pp.  170,  180). 


THE  ACTS  OF  JUDAS  THOMAS  199 

and  why  he  appears  in  the  legend  as  a  tamer 
of  wild  asses.  In  this  connexion  it  is  worth 
notice  that  in  a  passage  from  the  Bardesanian 
Dialogue  on  Fate,  quoted  in  the  previous 
Lecture  (see  p.  170),  a  passage  which  is  closely 
imitated  in  the  Acts  of  Thomas  also,  certain  arts 
are  mentioned  in  which  Christians  are  not  expected 
as  Christians  to  be  proficient,  viz.  stone-cutting, 
building,  and  navigation ;  these  very  arts  are 
included  among  the  traditional  activities  of  the 
Dioscuri.  But  there  must  at  present  remain  much 
that  is  doubtful  and  much  that  is  still  obscure  in 
this  fascinating  line  of  study.1 

With  the  Acts  of  Thomas,  as  with  all  good 
literature,  it  is  better  to  let  the  book  speak  for 
itself.  I  shall  therefore  tell  you  the  tale  of  how 
Judas  Thomas  the  Apostle  came  into  India 
and  built  a  Palace  for  the   King  in  Heaven. 2 

"And  when  Judas  had  entered  into  the  realm  of  India 
with  the  merchant  Habban,  Habban  went  to  salute  Gundaphar 
the  King  of  India,  and  he  told  him  of  the  artificer  whom  he 
had  brought  for  him.  And  the  King  was  very  glad,  and 
ordered  Judas  to  come  into  his  presence.  And  the  King 
said  to  him  :   '  What  art  dost  thou  know  to  practise  ?  '    Judas 


1  Especially  hazardous  is  Dr  Harris's  attempt  to  read  the 
mutilated  Inscription  on  one  of  the  two  great  Columns  at  Edessa 
as  a  dedication  to  the  constellation  Gemini.  The  two  great 
Columns  are  shown  in  the  frontispiece  to  this  volume,  but  I 
could  not  obtain  a  photograph  of  the  inscription. 

-   Wright's  Apocryphal  Acts,  English  Translation,  pp.  159-165. 


200  THE   ACTS   OF   JUDAS   THOMAS 

saith  to  him  :  '  I  am  a  carpenter,  the  servant  of  a  carpenter 
and  architect.'  He  saith  to  him :  '  What  dost  thou  know 
how  to  make?'  Judas  saith  to  him:  'In  wood  I  know  how 
to  make  yokes  and  ploughs  and  ox-goads,  and  oars  for  barges 
and  ferry-boats  and  masts  for  ships ;  and  in  hewn  stone, 
tombstones  and  monuments  and  palaces  for  Kings.'  The 
King  saith  to  Judas :  '  And  I  want  such  an  artificer.'  The 
King  saith  to  him  :  '  Wilt  thou  build  me  a  palace  ? '  Judas 
saith  to  him :  '  I  will  build  it  and  finish  it,  for  I  am  come 
to  work  at  building  and  carpentering.' 

"And  he  took  him  and  went  outside  the  gate  of  the 
city,  and  was  talking  with  him  about  the  constructing  of 
the  palace,  and  about  its  foundations  how  they  should  be 
laid.  And  when  he  had  reached  the  place  where  the  King 
wished  him  to  build  a  palace  for  him,  he  said  to  Judas  : 
'  Here  I  wish  you  to  build  for  me  a  palace.'  Judas  saith 
to  him  :  'Yes,  for  this  is  a  place  which  is  suitable  for  it.' 
Now  it  was  of  this  sort ;  it  was  a  meadow,  and  there  was 
plenty  of  water  near  it.  The  King  saith  to  him  :  '  Begin 
to  build  here.'  Judas  saith  to  him:  'Now  I  cannot  build 
at  this  time.'  The  King  saith  to  him  :  'And  at  what  time 
wilt  thou  be  able  to  build  ? '  Judas  saith  :  '  I  will  begin  in 
Autumn  and  I  will  finish  in  Spring.'  The  King  saith  to 
him  :  '  All  buildings  are  built  in  summer ;  and  dost  thou 
build  in  winter?'  Judas  saith  to  him:  'Thus  only  is  it 
possible  for  the  palace  to  be  built.'  The  King  saith  to 
him  :  '  Well  then,  trace  it  out  for  me  that  I  may  see  it, 
because  it  is  a  long  time  before  I  shall  come  hither.'  And 
Judas  came  and  took  a  cane  and  began  to  measure ;  and 
he  left  doors  towards  the  east  for  light,  and  windows  to- 
ward the  west  for  air,  and  they  made  the  bake-house  to 
the  South,  and  the  water-pipes  for  the  service  of  the  house 
to  the  North.  The  King  saith  to  him  :  'Verily  thou  art 
a  good  artificer  and  worthy  to  serve  a  King.'  And  he  left 
a  large  sum  of  money  and  departed  from  him,  and  more 
silver  and  gold  he  was  sending  to  him  from  time  to  time. 


THE  ACTS  OF  JUDAS  THOMAS  201 

"But  Judas  was  going  about  in  the  villages  and  in  the 
cities,  and  was  ministering  to  the  poor  and  was  making  the 
afflicted  comfortable,  and  he  was  saying  :  '  What  is  the 
King's  to  the  Kings  shall  be  given,  and  rest  there  shall  be  for 
many.' 

"And  after  a  long  time  the  King  despatched  messengers  to 
Judas  and  sent  to  him  thus  :  '  Send  me  word  what  thou  hast 
done  and  what  I  shall  send  thee.'  And  Judas  sent  him  word  : 
'  The  palace  is  built,  but  the  roof  is  wanting  to  it.'  Then  the 
King  sent  to  Judas  silver  and  gold,  and  sent  him  word  :  '  Let 
the  palace  be  roofed.'  And  the  Apostle  was  glorifying  our 
Lord  and  saying  :  '  I  thank  Thee  Lord,  who  didst  die  that  Thou 
mightest  give  me  life ;  and  who  didst  sell  me  that  I  might  be 
the  liberator  of  many.'  And  he  did  not  cease  to  teach  and  to 
relieve  those  who  were  afflicted,  saying  :  '  May  your  Lord  give 
you  rest,  to  whom  alone  is  the  glory  ;  for  He  is  the  nourisher 
of  the  orphans  and  the  provider  of  the  widows,  and  He 
ministers  unto  all  those  who  are  afflicted.' 

"And  when  the  King  came  to  the  city,  he  was  asking  every 
one  of  his  friends  about  the  palace  which  Judas  had  built  for 
him ;  but  they  say  unto  him  :  '  There  is  no  palace  built,  nor 
has  he  done  anything  else  but  going  about  the  cities  and  the 
villages  and  giving  to  the  poor  and  teaching  them  the  new 
God,  and  also  healing  the  sick  and  driving  out  demons  and 
doing  many  like  things ;  and  we  declare  that  he  is  a  sorcerer, 
but  his  compassion  and  his  healing,  which  was  done  without 
recompense,  and  his  asceticism  and  his  piety  declare  about 
him  that  either  he  is  a  Magian  or  an  Apostle  of  the- new  God. 
For  he  fasts  much  and  prays  much  and  eats  bread  and  salt 
and  drinks  water  and  wears  one  garment,  and  takes  nothing 
from  any  man  for  himself,  and  whatever  he  has  he  gives  to 
others.'  And  when  the  King  heard  these  things,  he  smote  his 
face  with  his  hands  and  was  shaking  his  head. 

"  And  he  sent  and  called  Judas  and  the  merchant  who  had 
bought  him,  and  said  to  him  :  '  Hast  thou  built  me  the 
palace?'     Judas  saith  to  him  :  'I  have  built  thee  the  palace.' 


202  THE  ACTS  OF  JUDAS  THOMAS 

The  King  saith  to  him  :  '  When  can  we  go  and  look  at  it  ? ' 
Judas  saith  to  him  :  '  Thou  canst  not  see  it  now,  but  when 
thou  hast  departed  from  this  world.'  Then  the  King  became 
furious  in  his  anger,  and  commanded  that  Thomas  and  the 
merchant  who  had  brought  him  should  go  in  bonds  to  prison, 
till  he  could  question  him  about  his  doings,  to  whom  he  had 
given  the  treasure,  and  then  destroy  him.  But  Judas  went 
rejoicing  and  said  to  the  merchant :  '  Fear  not,  but  only 
believe,  and  thou  shalt  be  freed  from  this  world,  and  shalt 
receive  everlasting  life  in  the  world  to  come.' 

"  And  the  King  was  considering  by  what  death  he  should 
kill  Judas  and  the  merchant;  and  he  took  the  resolution 
that  he  would  flay  him  alive  and  burn  him  with  the  merchant 
his  companion.  And  in  that  very  night  the  King's  brother, 
whose  name  was  Gad,  was  taken  ill  through  grief  and  through 
the  imposition  which  had  been  practised  on  the  King.  And 
he  sent  and  called  the  King  and  said  to  him  :  '  My  brother, 
I  commend  unto  thee  my  house  and  my  children,  for  I  am 
grieved  and  am  dying  because  of  the  imposition  that  hath 
been  practised  upon  thee.  If  thou  dost  not  punish  that 
sorcerer,  thou  wilt  not  let  my  soul  be  at  peace  in  Sheol.'  The 
King  saith  to  him  :  '  The  whole  night  I  have  been  considering 
how  I  should  kill  him,  and  I  have  resolved  to  flay  him  alive 
and  burn  him.'  Then  the  King's  brother  said  to  him  :  'And 
if  there  be  anything  worse  than  this,  do  it  to  him ;  and  I  give 
thee  charge  of  my  house  and  my  children.' 

"  And  when  he  had  said  these  things,  his  soul  left  him. 
And  the  King  was  grieved  for  his  brother,  because  he  loved  him 
much,  and  he  was  intending  to  bury  him  in  a  splendid  grave. 
But  when  the  soul  of  Gad,  the  King's  brother,  had  left  him, 
angels  took  it  and  bore  it  up  to  heaven ;  and  they  were 
showing  it  each  place  in  succession,  to  see  in  which  of  them 
it  wished  to  be.  Then,  when  they  came  to  the  palace  which 
Judas  had  built  for  the  King,  his  brother  saw  it  and  said  to 
the  angels  :  '  I  beg  of  you,  my  lords,  let  me  dwell  in  one  of 
the  lower  chambers  of  this  palace.'     The  angels  say  to  him  : 


THE   ACTS   OF   JUDAS   THOMAS  203 

'Thou  canst  not  dwell  in  this  palace.'  He  saith  to  them: 
'  Wherefore  ?  '  They  say  to  him  :  '  This  palace  is  the  one 
which  the  Christian  hath  built  for  thy  brother.'  Then  he 
said  to  them  :  '  I  beg  of  you,  my  lords,  let  me  go,  that  I  may 
go  and  buy  of  him  this  palace ;  for  my  brother  doth  not  under- 
stand the  matter  and  he  will  sell  it  to  me.' 

"Then  the  angels  let  go  the  soul  of  Gad.     And  as  his  body 
was  being  enshrouded,  his  soul  came  into  him,  and  he  said  to 
those  who  were  standing  before  him  :  '  Call  my  brother  to  me 
that  I  may  make  of  him  one  request.'     Then  they  sent  word  to 
the  King  :  '  Thy  brother  is  come  to  life.'     And  the  King  sprang 
up  from  his  place  and  went  into  the  house  of  his  brother  with 
a  number  of  people.     And  when  he  had  gone  in  beside  the 
bed,  he  was  astounded  and  unable  to  speak  with  him.     His 
brother  saith  to  him  :  '  I  know,  my  brother,  that  if  a  man  had 
asked  thee  for  the  half  of  thy   kingdom  thou  wouldst  have 
given  it  for  my  sake.     And  now  I  beg  of  thee  that  thou  sell 
me  that  at  which  thou  hast  laboured.'     The  King  saith  to 
him  :  <  Tell  me,  what  shall  I  sell  thee  ? '     He  saith  to  him  : 
'Swear  unto  me.'      And  he  sware  unto  him  that  he  would 
grant  him  whatever  he  asked  of  all  that  he  had.     He  saith 
to  him  :  'Sell  me  the  palace  which  thou  hast  in  heaven.'     The 
King  saith  to  him  :  '  Who  hath  given  me  a  palace  in  heaven  ? ' 
His  brother  saith  to  him:    'That  which  the  Christian  hath 
built  for  thee.'     Then  the  King  understood,  and  he  said  to  his 
brother :  '  That  I  cannot  sell  to  thee ;  but  I  pray  and  beg  of 
God  that  I  may  enter  into  it  and  receive  it,  and  may  be  worthy 
to   be  among  its  inhabitants.     And  thou,  if  thou  dost  really 
wish  to  buy  thyself  a  palace,  this  architect  will  build  one  for 
thee  which  will  be  better  than  that  of  mine.'     And  the  King 
sent   and   brought   out    Judas   and    the   merchant   who   was 
imprisoned  with  him,  and  said  to  him  :  '  I  beg  of  thee  as  a 
man  who  begs  a  minister  of  God,  that  thou  wouldst  pray  for 
me,  and  beg  for  me  from  the  God  that  thou  worshippest,  that 
He  would  forgive  me  what  I  have  done  unto  thee,  and  that 
he  would  make  me  worthy  to  enter  into  the  palace  which  thou 


204  THE   ACTS   OF   JUDAS   THOMAS 

hast  built  for  me,  and  that  I  may  become  a  worshipper  of  this 
God  whom  thou  preachest.' " 

Thus  the  King  and  his  brother  were  con- 
verted, and  presently  they  were  baptized  by 
Judas  Thomas  and  admitted  to  Christian 
Communion. 

I  have  quoted  you  this  story  almost  in  full, 
partly  for  its  own  sake,  partly  that  you  may 
have  an  opportunity  of  comparing  what  is  un- 
doubtedly an  integral  part  of  the  Acts  of 
Thomas  with  the  poem  imbedded  in  these  Acts 
which  we  call  the  Hymn  of  the  Soul. 

The  real  interest  of  the  Acts  of  Thomas  to  the 
student  of  Eastern  Christianity  does  not  lie  in 
the  adventures  of  the  Apostle,  but  in  his  prayers 
and  sermons,  in  the  doctrine  that  he  teaches. 
These  are  not  mere  embellishments  of  the 
narrative,  but  the  very  essence  of  the  book. 
What  the  author  wishes  us  to  give  our  earnest 
attention  is  the  Gospel  of  Virginity  and  Poverty 
and  its  effect  on  the  soul.  As  to  the  intense 
seriousness  of  the  work  there  can  be  no  doubt 
at  all  :  no  early  Christian  writer,  orthodox  or 
heterodox,  would  quote  the  Lord's  Prayer  in 
full  merely  for  ornament. 

In  treating  this  book  of  Apocryphal  Acts  as  a 
work  Syriac  in  origin  and  not  a  translation  from 
the  Greek,    I  have  ventured  to  assume  a  result 


THE   ACTS  OF  JUDAS  THOMAS  20$ 

which  I  have  endeavoured  elsewhere  to  prove.1 
Many  of  the  most  cogent  arguments  depend  on 
critical  details  and  the  niceties  of  Syriac  grammar, 
the  discussion  of  which  would  be  quite  out  of 
place  in  Lectures  such  as  these.  It  will  be 
sufficient  therefore  to  say  that  the  Syriac  origin 
of  the  Acts  of  Thomas  is  now  maintained  by 
nearly  every  Syriac  scholar,  from  my  friend 
Dr  Noldeke  of  Strassburg  downwards.  But 
apart  from  philological  argument  we  may  point 
out  in  passing  that  the  whole  framework  of  the 
tale  belongs  to  the  countries  washed  by  the 
Euphrates  and  the  Tigris.  The  proper  names 
are  such  as  would  occur  to  a  Syriac-speaking 
Christian,  but  they  could  hardly  have  been  in- 
vented by  a  Greek,  It  is  to  Justi's  Iranisches 
Namenbuch  and  not  to  Pape's  Griechische 
Eigennamen  that  we  have  to  look  for  their  eluci- 
dation. Mazdai,  Wezan,  Manashar,  are  good 
old- Persian  names.  Mygdonia  is  called  after 
the  river  of  Nisibis,  just  as  the  Edessan 
Bardaisan  was  called  after  the  river  of  Edessa. 
It  is  surely  significant  that  in  the  only  ancient 
Roman  deed  of  sale  of  a  slave  from  Mesopotamia 
which  has  found  its  way  into  a  modern  library 


1  See  Journal  of  Theological  Studies,  i  280-290,  ii  429,  iii  94  ; 
compare  Bonnet's  Acta  Philippi  et  Acta  Thomae  (Leipzig,  1903), 
pp.  xx  ff. 


206  THE   ACTS   OF   JUDAS   THOMAS 

the  name  of  the  slave  is  Abbanes,  the  same 
name  as  that  of  the  merchant  who  bought  Judas 
Thomas  from  Jesus  Christ.  Except  Xanthippus 
the  deacon  and  Tertia  the  queen  there  is  not 
one  European  -  sounding  name  among  all  the 
characters  of  the  novel.1 

I  have  designated  the  Acts  of  Tho?nas  as  un- 
orthodox. This  perhaps  requires  some  justifica- 
tion. Judged  by  the  ordinary  Western  standard 
it  is  in  many  ways  heretical,  but  the  standard  of 
the  early  Syriac-speaking  Church  was  that  of 
Aphraates  rather  than  that  of  Athanasius.  Even 
in  the  matter  of  marriage  and  continence  we 
cannot  at  once  say  that  he  is  in  absolute  conflict 
with  the  teaching  of  his  Church,  for  in  prohibiting 
his  baptized  converts  to  marry,  or  to  live  as  man 
and  wife,  he  is  doing  no  more  than  what  Aphraates 
prohibited.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  state 
of  matrimony  was  not  recognised  as  holy  by 
early  Syriac  Christianity.  Nor  again  does  the 
unorthodoxy  of  these  Acts  rest  entirely  on  the 
elements    commonly    recognised    as    "Gnostic." 

1  Dr  Harris  {Dioscuri,  p.  27)  suggests  that  this  may  have  been 
a  recognised  name  of  one  of  the  charioteers  of  the  Heavenly  Twins. 
Xanthippus  is  only  mentioned  in  the  Acts  of  Thomas  ( Wright, 
p.  204)  as  the  person  whom  the  Apostle  leaves  in  charge  when  he 
goes  away.  Even  so  did  King  Ptolemy  Euergetes  :  "  Ciliciam 
autem  amico  suo  Antiocho  gubernandam  tradidit  et  Xanthippo 
alteri  duci  prouincias  trans  Euphraten"  (Jerome  on  Dan  xi  9, 
quoted  by  E.  R.  Bevan,  House  of  Seleucus  i  189,  note). 


THE  ACTS  OF  JUDAS  THOMAS  20y 

These  consist  of  certain  mystical  and  very  im- 
perfectly understood  expressions  in  the  prayers 
and  invocations  of  S.  Thomas.  I  do  not  wish 
to  minimise  the  interest  of  these  curious 
phrases  ;  obscure  as  they  are,  they  present  un- 
mistakeable  points  of  contact  with  the  equally 
obscure  phrases  of  the  Bardesanian  hymns 
quoted  by  S.  Ephraim.  It  is  true,  moreover, 
that  some  of  these  expressions  have  been  re- 
moved from  the  Syriac  text  as  preserved  in  the 
British  Museum  MS.  used  by  Wright,  and  many 
more  have  been  left  out  in  the  Sachan  MS.  at 
Berlin  used  by  Bedjan,  and  so  we  find  them 
only  in  the  ancient  Greek  translation.  But 
some  at  least  of  the  queer  phrases  in  the  Greek 
are  the  result  not  of  heterodox  doctrine  but  of 
the  ignorance  or  helplessness  of  the  translator. 

Yet  I  venture  to  think  that  the  real  heresy  of 
the  writer  of  the  Acts  of  Thomas  is  not  to  be 
found  in  his  cosmogony,  but  in  his  independence 
and  the  puritan  recklessness  of  his  attitude. 
From  the  moment  that  S.  Thomas  starts  for 
India  we  hear  no  more  of  the  other  Apostles. 
He  is  absolutely  independent  of  every  one 
except  his  Lord.  The  word  Church  occurs 
only  once  and  that  by  mistake.  Uncatholic 
also  is  the  want  of  interest  in  controversy 
against   the    Jews   and   against   idolatry.     Judas 


208  THE   ACTS   OF   JUDAS   THOMAS 

Thomas  does  not  bring  forward  unorthodox 
opinions  about  the  old  dispensation  or  the 
worship  of  heathen  gods :  he  simply  passes 
these  things  by  with  the  turn  of  a  phrase. 
Thus  we  read  (E.  Transl.,  p.  207)  that  God's 
will  was  spoken  by  the  Prophets,  but  Israel  did 
not  obey  because  of  their  evil  genius.1  Again, 
the  devils  confess  that  they  take  pleasure  in 
sacrifices  of  wine  on  the  altars  as  well  as  in 
murder  and  adultery  (E.  Transl.,  p.  213).2  But 
these  are  mere  allusions  by  the  way  :  it  is  not 
so  much  against  the  gods  that  S.  Thomas 
preaches  as  against  the  evil  nature  in  man. 
Contrast  this  with  the  elaborate  polemic  against 
the  Jews  in  Aphraates,  and  the  long  sermons 
against  idolatry  in  the  Doctrine  of  Addai.  So 
much  indeed  is  it  the  rule  that  the  "  Acts "  of 
martyrs  should  contain  a  testimony  against  the 
worship  of  idols  that  in  the  Latin  version  of 
the  Acta  Thomae  there  is  an  extended  interpola- 
tion, telling  how  S.  Thomas  refused  to  worship 
the  Sun-god  when  he  was  brought  before  King 
Mazdai. 

The    interest   of    the   author   of    the   Acts  of 
Thomas  lay  in   the  workings   of  human  nature, 


1  In  the  Syriac yasr'Iwn  bhhd:  cf.  Deut  xxxi  21  and  the  corre- 
sponding Jewish  doctrines. 

2  See  also  Transl.,  p.  198, 


THE   ACTS   OF   JUDAS   THOMAS  209 

not  in  the  conflicting  claims  of  rival  religions — 
in  a  word,  it  lay  in  the  conversion  of  individual 
souls    rather    than    in    the    establishment    of    a 
Church.      But  to  the  Catholic  writers  from  the 
very  first  the  case  was  different.     To  them  the 
Jewish  question  was  vital,  not  so  much  for  the 
sake   of    convincing    the    Jews    of    error   as    to 
establish   their  own  position.      There  stood  the 
Holy    Oracles,    the   promises    of    God    to    His 
people — to   whom    did   they  apply?     It   was    as 
essential  for  the  early  Church   to   establish    her 
claim  to  be  the  true  heir  of  the   Covenants,  as 
it  is  for  the   High  Anglican  of  our  day  to   make 
out  a  case  for  the  apostolical  succession  of  the 
English    bishops.      With    the    Gnostic,   unless    I 
am    mistaken,    the    position    of    things    was    not 
quite    the     same.        Early    Christianity    was    a 
historical    religion,  proved   by    texts    out   of  the 
Old  Testament  and  by  the  events  of  the  life  of 
Jesus    of    Nazareth :    Gnosticism,    on    the    other 
hand,  was  more   what    we    call   natural    religion, 
a  philosophy.     The   philosophy   might   be    illus- 
trated   from    the    Old    Testament   or   the    New, 
but  it  was  really  independent  of  the  Bible.     It 
was  not  the  application  of  the  old   promises   of 
God   that    troubled    the   author   of  the   Acts   of 
Thomas    but    the    aimlessness    of    men's    lives, 
which  to    him    appeared  to    be    filled    with    care 

o 


210  THE   ACTS   OF  JUDAS   THOMAS 

and  sorrow  about  that  which  must  quickly  pass 
away  for  ever. 

In  the  conception  of  the  Church — that  is,  the 
organised  body  of  believers, — as  a  thing  in  itself 
to  be  worked  for  and  fostered,  lies  the  true  point 
of  difference  between  Catholicism  and  Gnosticism, 
between  Aphraates  and  the  Acts  of  Thomas.  To 
the  convert  of  Judas  Thomas  there  was  literally 
nothing  left  on  this  earth  to  live  for.  "  Would 
that  the  days  passed  swiftly  over  me,  and  that 
all  the  hours  were  one,"  says  Mygdonia,  "that 
I  might  go  forth  from  this  world  ;  and  go  and 
see  that  Beautiful  One  the  tale  of  Whom  I  have 
heard,1  that  Living  One  and  Giver  of  life  to 
those  who  have  believed  in  Him,  where  there 
is  neither  day  nor  night,  and  no  darkness  but 
light,  and  neither  good  nor  bad,  nor  rich  nor 
poor,  neither  male  nor  female,  nor  slaves  nor 
freemen,  nor  any  proud  and  uplifted  over  those 
who  are  humble." :  The  old  civilisation  was 
doomed,  but  this  religious  Nihilism  puts  nothing 
in  its  place.  To  the  orthodox  Christian,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  Church  stood  like  Aaron 
between  the  dead  and  the  living,  as  a  middle 
term  between  the  things  of  the  next  world  and 


1  Sic :  Wright's   text   is   here   supported  by  the   ancient   Sinai 
fragments. 

2  Wright,  Transl.,  p.  265. 


CATHOLICISM   AND   GNOSTICISM  211 

of  this.  It  was  the  Body  of  Christ  and  there- 
fore eternal ;  something  worth  living  for  and 
working  for.  Yet  it  was  in  the  world  as 
much  as  the  Empire  itself.  The  idea  of  the 
Church  thus  formed  an  invaluable  fixed  point, 
round  which  a  new  civilisation  could  slowly 
crystallise. 

The  Acts  of  Thomas  tell  us  that  the  Apostle 
was  arrested  at  the  house  of  Sifur  after  the 
conversion  of  Mygdonia  and  thrown  into  prison 
by  the  order  of  King  Mazdai.  In  the  prison, 
like  Paul  and  Silas  at  Philippi,  he  sings  a  Hymn  ; 
but  the  Hymn  which  he  is  said  to  have  sung  is 
not  in  the  least  like  anything  we  should  have 
expected  to  find.  And  indeed,  although  this 
Hymn  is  contained  in  the  ancient  Greek 
versions  so  happily  discovered  by  Professor 
Bonnet,  as  well  as  in  the  Syriac  MS.  used  by 
Dr  Wright,  it  is  universally  agreed  that  it  is 
a  distinct  independent  work.1  It  had  originally 
nothing  to  do  with  the  Acts  of  Thomas,  and 
most  people  think  that  it  has  only  been  inserted  in 


1  The  original  Syriac  text  of  the  Hymn  is  given  in  Wright's 
Apocryphal  Acts  i  274-279  (E.  Transl.,  pp.  238-245) ;  the  Greek 
translation  is  edited  in  M.  Bonnet's  Acta  Thomae  (ed.  of  1903), 
pp.  219-224,  and  see  Analecta  Bollcmdiana  xx  159-164. 


212  THE  HYMN  OF  THE  SOUL 

its  present  position  by  an  ancient  editor.1  That 
it  is  a  Syriac  composition  is  clear,  not  only  from 
the  style,  but  also  from  the  fact  that  it  is  written 
in  metre.  It  is  arranged  in  lines  of  twelve 
syllables  each,  divided  by  a  pause  which  breaks 
up  the  line  into  two  half-verses  of  six  and  six 
or  five  and  seven  syllables  respectively,  and 
further  the  twelve-syllable  lines  seem  to  me  to 
fall  into  stanzas  of  five  lines  each.  In  the  transla- 
tion which  I  am  about  to  read  to  you,  I  have 
tried  to  represent  each  of  the  twelve-syllable 
lines  of  the  Syriac  by  an  English   Hexameter. 

The  use  of  this  metre  is  the  less  inappropriate 
as  the  poem  is  cast  in  narrative  form.  We 
call  it  the  Hymn  of  the  Soul,  but  it  is  not  so 
much  a  Hymn  as  a  short  Epic,  telling  the  tale 
of  the  Prince  who  went  down  to  Egypt  to 
fetch  the  Serpent-guarded  Pearl.  As  we  travel 
with  the  hero  we  are  brought  into  unfamiliar 
regions.  The  home  of  the  Prince  is  the  old 
Parthian     Empire,     roughly     corresponding     to 


1  I  cannot  help  expressing  a  private  opinion  that  the  Hymn 
was  inserted  by  the  author  of  the  Acts  himself,  just  as  he  used 
the  Lord's  Prayer  in  a  later  prayer  of  Judas  Thomas.  That  the 
Hymn  itself  is  independent  of  the  Acts  of  Thomas  is  certain,  but 
it  is  not  so  clear  that  the  Acts  of  Thomas  is  independent  of  the 
Hymn.  The  great  Hymn,  in  fact,  may  have  become  a  part  of  the 
recognised  teaching  of  the  sect  to  which  the  author  of  the  Acts 
belonged  (cf.  Ephraim's  Commentary  on  3  Corinthians,  p.  119). 


GEOGRAPHY   OF   THE    HYMN  213 

modern  Persia.  The  King,  his  Father,  lives 
either  in  Hyrcania  near  the  southern  shores 
of  the  Caspian  Sea,  or  as  it  were  in  Rhages 
near  Teheran.  The  wealth  of  the  Kingdom 
is  deposited  in  Elymais  and  the  mountain 
sanctuaries  of  Atropatene  (the  modern  Adher- 
baijan),  or  comes  from  over  the  mountains, 
from  the  unknown  lands  of  India.  With  the 
tact  of  a  poet  the  author  does  not  mention  the 
modern  cities  of  Ctesiphon  and  Seleucia ;  to 
the  Prince  all  the  Euphrates  Valley  is  the 
Land  of  Babylon,  a  foreign  hostile  region 
peopled  with  demons.  Egypt  also  is  far  from 
being  the  land  we  all  know  so  well,  the  granary 
of  the  Roman  Empire  ;  in  our  Hymn  it  is  an 
unclean  land,  the  land  of  magic  and  enchant- 
ment from  which  the  Chosen  People  of  old 
escaped,  a  land  mysteriously  situate  beyond 
the  sea.  But  between  Babylon  and  the  sea, 
where  the  hero  strikes  the  plain  on  his  way 
down  from  his  native  mountains,  is  the  district 
of  Maishan  or  Mesene,  a  friendly  country  to 
some  extent  under  his  Father's  dominion.  The 
only  companion  he  can  make  in  the  hated  land 
of  Egypt  appears  to  be  a  merchant  from  Maishan, 
a  stranger  there  like  himself ;  and  on  his  return 
journey  it  is  when  he  reaches  Maishan  that  the 
dangers  of  the  route  come  to  an  end. 


214  THE   HYMN    OF   THE   SOUL 

Although  the  narrative  is  never  once 
interrupted  by  preaching  or  philosophy,  the 
general  scope  of  the  Allegory  is  clear.  In  the 
words  of  Noldeke : 2  "  We  have  here  an 
ancient  Gnostic  hymn  relating  to  the  Soul, 
which  is  sent  from  its  heavenly  home  to  the 
earth,  and  there  forgets  both  its  origin  and  its 
mission  until  it  is  aroused  by  a  revelation  from 
on  high  ;  thereupon  it  performs  the  task  assigned 
to  it  and  returns  to  the  upper  regions,  where 
it  is  re-united  to  the  heavenly  robe,  its  ideal 
counterpart,  and  enters  the  presence  of  the 
highest  celestial  Powers."  Yet  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  point  out  that  some  of  the  details  are 
not  really  so  strange  as  they  appear  at  first 
sight  to  us,  who  are  accustomed  to  look  at  the 
theory  of  our  Religion  only  through  the  spectacles 
of  Greek  Theology.  The  King  of  Kings,  the 
Queen  of  the  East,  and  the  next  in  rank,  the 
Viceroy,  are  the  Father,  Mother,  and  Brother  of 
the  Soul.  They  seem  to  correspond  to  the 
Father,  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  the  Son.  This 
presentation  was  shocking  to  the  Greek  mind 
of  the  fourth  century,  but  we  have  already  seen 
that  in  Semitic  languages  Spirit  or  Wind  is 
feminine,  and  that  Aphraates  himself  does  not 
scruple   to  call    the   Holy  Spirit  the   Mother   of 

1  Quoted  in  A.  A.  Bevan's  Hymn  of  the  Soul,  p.  2. 


THE   HEAVENLY   ROBE  215 

a  man — that  Mother,  in  fact,  whom  the  Scripture 
declares  him  to  forsake  when  he  marries  a  wife.1 

The  thought  of  the  Heavenly  Robe  is  perhaps 
even  less  familiar  to  us,  though  not  to  earlier 
Christian  speculation.  S.  Paul  (2  Cor.  v  2) 
speaks  of  "earnestly  desiring  to  be  clothed 
upon  with  our  house  which  is  from  heaven." 
That  which  S.  Paul  desired  was  no  fixed 
"house"  or  "habitation,"  but  a  Heavenly  Form. 
So  here,  too,  the  Robe  is  no  article  of  clothine, 
but  a  Bright  Form.  The  Syriac  word  means 
The  Bright  or  The  Shining  thing.  It  is  "put 
off"  and  "put  on"  by  the  Soul,  and  it  "spreads 
itself  out "  like  a  garment ;  on  the  other  hand, 
it  is  represented  as  assuming  the  appearance  of  the 
returning  Prince  and  even  as  speaking  with  its 
Guardians.  The  word  "body"  is  never  used 
either  of  it  or  of  the  Soul,  "  stature "  being  used 
instead.  I  have  kept  Robe  as  the  most  satisfactory 
English  equivalent  for  this  Body  Celestial. 

Over  the  Robe  is  cast  a  Tunic  of  royal  scarlet, 
and  within  dwells  the  true  Soul.  But  when  the 
time  comes  for  the  Soul  to  be  born  into  this 
world,  the  Heavenly  Vesture  must  be  left 
behind   in  the   presence  of  the  Father. 2     There 

1  Wright's  Afihraates,  p.  354  ;  see  above,  p.  89. 

1  Compare  Matt,  xviii  10,  and  see  the  illuminating  Essay  by 
Dr  J.  H.  Moulton,  called  "It  is  his  Angel"  {Journal  of  TheoL 
Studies,  iii  514-527). 


2l6  THE   HYMN    OF   THE   SOUL 

it  grows  with  the  growth  of  the  Soul  on  earth 
and  suffers  with  its  failures.  At  last  the  Soul 
has  done  its  work  here ;  it  strips  off  for  ever 
the  unclean  garment  of  the  earthly  body,  and 
it  meets  once  more  its  Heavenly  Frame  on  its 
way  back  to  the  Father's  Home. 

There  is  reason  to  suppose  that  the  Hymn 
was  composed  before  the  overthrow  of  the 
Parthian  dynasty  in  224  a.d.  The  whole 
machinery  of  the  poem,  so  far  as  it  does  not 
belong  to  fairyland,  is  borrowed  from  the 
conditions  of  the  Parthian  empire.  There  is 
nothing  to  show  that  while  their  successors  the 
Sasanians  were  in  power  the  people  of  Roman 
Mesopotamia  ever  looked  back  to  the  hegemony 
of  the  Parthians  as  to  an  ideal  or  golden  age,  or 
indeed  that  the  special  features  of  Parthian  rule 
and  the  political  geography  of  the  Parthian 
dominions  were  familiar  at  Edessa  after  that 
rule  had  passed  away.  Thus  the  composition 
of  the  Hymn  falls  within  the  lifetime  of 
Bardaisan,  and  we  may  indulge  the  pleasing 
fancy  that  it  was  the  work  of  Bardaisan  himself 
or  of  his  son  Harmonius.  You  will  find  the 
question  as  adequately  discussed  as  the  paucity 
of  the  evidence  allows  in  the  Introduction  which 
my  friend  Professor  A.  A.  Bevan  has  prefixed 
to  his  edition   of  the   Hymn.     Professor   Bevan 


DATE   AND   AUTHORSHIP  2\y 

concludes  with  words  which  I  take  this  oppor- 
tunity to  quote:1  "Whatever  may  be  the 
ultimate  verdict  of  scholars  as  to  the  exact  date 
and  authorship  of  this  composition,  it  will  always 
deserve  careful  study  on  account  of  the  light 
which  it  throws  upon  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
phrases  in  the  religious  history  of  mankind. 
Gnosticism  is  here  displayed  to  us  not  as  it 
appeared  to  its  enemies,  not  as  a  tissue  of 
fantastic  speculations,  but  as  it  was  in  reality,  at 
least  to  some  of  its  adherents,  a  new  religion. 
Though  the  religious  conceptions  of  the  author 
are,  in  some  respects,  very  closely  akin  to  those 
of  the  early  Christians,  he  nowhere  refers  directly 
to  the  New  Testament,  nor  does  he  even  allude 
to  the  historical  facts  on  which  Christianity  is 
founded.  Yet  he  does  not  speak  doubtfully,  as 
one  feeling  after  truth  ;  his  convictions,  such  as 
they  are,  respecting  the  realities  of  the  unseen 
world,  rest  upon  what  he  believes  to  be  a  direct 
revelation,  symbolised  by  the  living  letter  which 
the  King  sealed  with  his  right  hand.  Until  this 
state  of  mind  is  understood,  the  nature  of  Oriental 
Gnosticism  and  of  the  struggle  which  it  long 
maintained,  against  Paganism  on  the  one  side 
and  traditional  Christianity  on  the  other,  must 
remain  a  mystery." 

1  A.  A.  Bevan,  Hymn  of  Hie  Sou/,  p.  7  [Texts  and  Studies  v  3]. 


2l8  THE   HYMN    OF   THE   SOUL 

And  now  we  come  to  the  Hymn  itself  :- 


While  I  was  yet  but  a  little  child  in  the  House  of  my  Father, 
Brought  up  in  luxury,  well  content  with  the  life  of  the  Palace, 
Far  from  the  East,  our  home,  my  Parents  sent  me  to  travel, 
And  from  the  royal  Hoard  they  prepared  me  a  load  for  the 

journey, 
Precious  it  was  yet  light,  that  alone  I  carried  the  burden. 


II 

Median  gold  it  contained  and  silver  from  Atropatene, 
Garnet  and  ruby  from  Hindostan  and  Bactrian  agate, 
Adamant  harness  was  girded  upon  me  stronger  than  iron  ; 
But  my  Robe  they  took  off  wherewith  their  love  had  adorned 

me, 
And  the  bright  Tunic  woven  of  scarlet  and  wrought  to  my 

stature. 

Ill 

For  they  decreed,  and  wrote  on  my  heart  that  I  should  not 

forget  it : 
"  If  thou  go  down  and  bring  from  Egypt  the  Pearl,  the  unique 

one, 
"Guarded  there  in  the  Sea  that  envelopes  the  loud-hissing 

Serpent, 
"Thou  shalt  be  clothed  again  with  thy  Robe  and  the  Tunic 

of  scarlet, 
"And  with  thy  Brother,  the   Prince,   shalt  thou  inherit   the 

Kingdom." 


THE   HYMN   OF   THE  SOUL  219 

IV 

So  I  quitted  the  East,  two  Guardians  guiding  me  downwards, 
Hard  was  the  way  for  a  child  and  a   dangerous  journey   to 

travel, 
Soon    I    had    passed    Maishan,    the    mart    of    the   Eastern 

merchants, 
Over  the  soil  of  Babylon  then  I  hurried  my  footsteps, 
And  my  companions  left  me  within  the  borders  of  Egypt. 

V 

Straight  to  the  Serpent   I   went  and   near  him  settled   my 

dwelling, 
Till  he  should  slumber  and  sleep,  and   the   Pearl   I   could 

snatch  from  his  keeping, 
I  was  alone,  an  exile  under  a  foreign  dominion, 
None  did  I  see  of  the  free-born  race  of  the  Easterns, 
Save  one  youth,  a  son  of  Maishan,  who  became  my  companion. 

VI 

He  was  my  friend  to  whom  I  told  the  tale  of  my  venture, 
Warned   him   against   the   Egyptians   and   all   their  ways   of 

uncleanness ; 
Yet  in  their  dress  I  clothed  myself  to  escape  recognition, 
Being  afraid  lest  when  they  saw  that  I  was  a  stranger 
Come  from  afar  for  the  Pearl,  they  would  rouse  the  Serpent 

against  me. 

VII 

It  was  from  him  perchance  they  learnt  I  was  none  of  their 

kindred, 
And   in   their  guile   they  gave  me  to  eat   of  their   unclean 

dainties ; 
Thus  I  forgot  my  race  and  I  served  the  King  of  the  country, 
Nay,  I  forgot  the  Pearl  for  which  my  parents  had  sent  me, 
While    from     their    poisonous     food    I    sank    into    slumber 

unconscious. 


220  THE    HYMN   OF   THE   SOUL 


VIII 


All  that  had  chanced  my  Parents  knew  and  they  grieved  for 

me  sorely, 
Through  the    land  they  proclaimed    for   all  at  our   Gate  to 

assemble — 
Parthian  Princes  and  Kings,  and  all  the  Eastern  Chieftains — 
There  they  devised  an  escape  that  I  should  not  perish  in 

Egypt, 
Writing  a  letter  signed  in  the  name  of  each  of  the  Chieftains. 

IX 

"  From   thy  Father,  the  King   of  Kings, — from   the   Queen, 

thy  Mother,— 
"And   from   thy  Brother, — to   thee,    our   Son   in    Egypt,   be 

greeting  ! 
"  Up  and  arise  from  sleep,  and  hear  the  words  of  our  Letter ! 
"  Thou   art   a   son   of  Kings :    by   whom   art   thou   held   in 

bondage  ? 
"  Think  of  the  Pearl  for  which  thou  wast  sent  to  sojourn 

in   Egypt. 

X 

"  Think   of  thy   shining   Robe   and   remember   thy  glorious 

Tunic  ; 
"These  thou  shalt  wear  when  thy  name  is  enrolled  in   the 

list  of  the  heroes, 
"And    with    thy   Brother    Viceroy   thou    shalt    be   in    the 

Kingdom." 
This  was  my  Letter,  sealed  with  the  King's  own  Seal  on  the 

cover, 
Lest   it   should  fall   in  the  hands  of  the   fierce   Babylonian 

demons. 


THE    HYMN    OF   THE   SOUL  221 


XI 


High  it  flew  as  the  Eagle,  King  of  the  birds  of  the  heaven, 
Flew  and  alighted  beside  me,  and  spoke  in  the  speech  of  my 

country, 
Then  at  the  sound  of  its  tones  I  started  and  rose  from  my 

slumber  ; 
Taking  it  up  I  kissed  and  broke  the  Seal  that  was  on  it, 
And  like  the  words  engraved  on  my  heart  were  the  words  of 

the  Letter. 

XII 

So  I  remembered  my  Royal  race  and  my  free-born  nature, 
So  I  remembered  the  Pearl,  for  which  they  had  sent  me  to 

Egypt. 

And  I  began  to  charm  the  terrible  loud- hissing  Serpent : 
Down  he  sank  into  sleep  at  the  sound  of  the  Name  of  my 

Father, 
And  at  my  Brother's  Name,  and  the  Name  of  the  Queen,  my 

Mother. 

XIII 

Then  I  seized  the  Pearl  and  homewards  started  to  journey, 
Leaving  the  unclean  garb  I  had  worn  in  Egypt  behind  me ; 
Straight   for   the  East  I   set  my  course,    to  the  light   of  the 

home-land, 
And  on  the  way  in  front  I  found  the  Letter  that  roused  me — 
Once  it  awakened  me,  now  it  became  a  Light  to  my  pathway. 

XIV 

For  with  its  silken  folds  it  shone  on  the  road  I  must  travel, 
And  with  its  voice  and  leading  cheered  my  hurrying  footsteps, 
Drawing  me  on  in  love  across  the  perilous  passage, 
Till  I  had  left  the  land  of  Babylon  safely  behind  me 
And    I    had    reached    Maishan,    the    sea-washed    haven   of 
merchants. 


222  THE  HYMN  OF  THE  SOUL 


XV 


What  I  had  worn  of  old,  my  Robe  with  its  Tunic  of  scarlet, 
Thither  my  Parents  sent  from  the  far  Hyrcanian  mountains, 
Brought  by  the  hand  of  the  faithful  warders  who  had  it  in 

keeping ; 
I  was  a  child  when  I  left  it  nor  could  its  fashion  remember, 
But  when  I  looked,  the  Robe  had  received  my  form  and  my 

likeness. 


XVI 

It  was  myself  that  I  saw  before  me  as  in  a  mirror ; 
Two  in  number  we  stood,  yet  only  one  in  appearance, 
Not  less  alike  than  the  strange  twin  guardian  figures 
Bringing  my  Robe,  each  marked  with  the  royal  Escutcheon, 
Servants   both   of  the   King   whose   troth    restored    me    my 
Treasure. 


XVII 

Truly  a  royal  Treasure  appeared  my  Robe  in  its  glory, 
Gay  it  shone  with  beryl  and  gold,  sardonyx  and  ruby, 
Over  its  varied  hues  there  flashed  the  colour  of  sapphire, 
All  its  seams  with  stones  of  adamant  firmly  were  fastened, 
And  upon  all  the  King  of  Kings  Himself  was  depicted. 


XVIII 

While  I  gazed  it  sprang  into  life  as  a  sentient  creature, 
Even  as  if  endowed  with  speech  and  hearing  I  saw  it, 
Then  I  heard  the  tones  of  its  voice  as  it  cried  to  the  keepers  : 
"  He,  the  Champion,  he  for  whom  I  was  reared  by  the  Father — 
"  Hast  thou  not  marked  me,  how  my  stature  grew  with  his 
labours  ?  " 


THE   HYMN    OF   THE   SOUL  22' 


XIX 


All  the  while  with  a  kingly  mien  my  Robe  was  advancing, 
Flowing  towards  me  as  if  impatient  with  those  who  bore  it ; 
I  too  longed  for  it,  ran  to  it,  grasped  it,  put  it  upon  me, 
Once  again  I  was  clothed  in  my  Robe  and  adorned  with  its 

beauty, 
And  the  bright  many-hued  Tunic  again  was  gathered  about 

me. 

XX 

Clad  in  the  Robe  I  betook  me  up  to  the  Gate  of  the  Palace, 
Bowing  my  head  to  the  glorious  Sign  of  my  Father  that  sent 

it; 
I  had  performed  His  behest  and  He  had  fulfilled  what  He 

promised, 
So  in  the  Satraps'  Court  I  joined  the  throng  of  the  Chieftains — 
He  with  favour  received  me  and  near  Him  I  dwell  in  the 

Kingdom. 


Such  is  the  Hymn  of  the  Soul.  Our  MS.  adds 
a  fragment  of  yet  another  stanza,  but  the  faulty 
metre  warns  us  that  the  text  has  been  ill  pre- 
served. It  shows  us  however  that  the  Prince 
who  has  returned  to  his  Home  looks  forward 
yet  to  a  great  Day,  when  he  will  present  his 
Pearl  before  the  King  of  Kings,  his  Father.  In 
that  day,  to  change  the  imagery  into  S.  Paul's 
more  familiar  language,   God  will  be  all  in  all. 


224  THE  HYMN  OF  THE  SOUL 

It  is  difficult  for  our  distant  age  and  Western 
civilisation  to  judge  the  great  Hymn.  We  live, 
so  to  speak,  in  the  unclean  land  of  Egypt,  and 
we  cannot  see  the  light  of  the  East  or  hear  the 
words  of  the  winged  Letter.  We  are  all  full  of 
schemes  for  improving  the  world  in  which  we 
actually  find  ourselves,  and  are  very  sceptical 
of  a  teaching  which  tells  us  that  we  are  only 
strangers  and  sojourners  and  that  our  true 
home  is  elsewhere.  This  is  natural  enough  in 
an  age  like  ours,  when  every  decennium  marks 
some  new  discovery  of  the  nature  and  action 
of  the  wonderful  forces  around  us  which  con- 
dition our  present  existence.  No  one  longs  for 
next  year  in  the  early  summer,  much  less  in 
the  spring.  The  age  of  the  author  of  the  Hymn 
and  of  the  author  of  the  Acts  of  Thomas  was 
very  different  from  that  in  which  we  live. 
They  lived  in  a  world  that  was  beginning  to 
wear  out,  a  Civitas  Mundi  that  had  passed  its 
prime.  All  that  was  best  in  the  old  civilisation 
in  Science,  in  Art,  in  Literature,  in  Philosophy, 
in  all  that  goes  to  make  up  the  pageant  of  human 
life,  had  already  been  done,  and  the  world  needed 
re-birth. 

Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  to  the  early 
Christian  thinkers  the  life  we  live  here  seemed 
only  valuable  for  that  which  we  may  take  away 


THE   HYMN   OF  THE   SOUL  225 

with  us  when  we  quit  it :  the  Merchant's  goods 
were  worth  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  Pearl 
of  great  price.  Happiness,  satisfaction,  rest, 
these  belonged  according  to  their  teaching 
altogether  to  the  other  life.  "As  long  as  we 
are  in  the  world,"  says  S.  Thomas  to  his  con- 
verts, "we  are  unable  to  speak  about  that 
which  all  the  believers  in  God  are  going  to 
receive.  For  if  we  say  that  He  hath  given  us 
Light,  we  mention  something  which  we  have 
seen ;  and  if  we  say  that  He  hath  given  us 
Wealth,  we  mention  something  that  is  in  the 
world  ;  and  if  we  speak  of  Clothing,  we  mention 
something  that  nobles  wear ;  and  if  we  speak 
of  dainty  Meats,  we  mention  something  against 
which  we  are  warned ;  and  if  we  speak  of  this 
temporary  Rest,  a  chastisement  is  appointed 
for  it.  But  we  speak  of  God  and  of  our  Lord 
Jesus,  and  of  Angels  and  Watchers  and  Holy 
Ones,  and  of  the  New  World,  and  of  the  in- 
corruptible food  of  the  Tree  of  Life,  and  of  the 
draught  of  the  Water  of  Life  ;  of  what  Eye  hath 
not  seen,  nor  Ear  heard,  nor  hath  it  entered  into 
the  Heart  of  man  to  conceive,  what  God  hath 
prepared  from  of  old  for  those  who  love  Him." 

It  was  the  hope  of  this  that  sent  the  Saints 
of  Eastern  Christianity  into  the  desert,  that  sent 
Simeon  Stylites  to  his  pillar,  that  induced  many 

p 


226  THE   HYMN    OF   THE   SOUL 

a  nameless  disciple  to  cut  himself  off  from  all 
that  the  State  and  the  Family  had  to  offer.  It 
is  not  for  us  to  blame  them.  Let  us  rather  be 
thankful  that  our  lot  has  been  cast  in  an 
environment  where  the  work  immediately 
before  us  is  great  and  worthy  enough  to 
absorb  the  energies  of  the  most  generously 
endowed.  Our  business,  no  doubt,  is  to  work 
while  it  is  called  to-day  ;  the  time  perhaps  will 
come  to  our  civilisation  also,  when  the  night 
falls  and  no  man  can  work,  but  only  dream  of 
a  day  that  is  to  be. 


THE   HYMN    OF   THE   SOUL  227 


NOTE   ON   THE   HYMN   OF   THE   SOUL. 

In  view  of  the  many  difficulties  which  the  original  Syriac  offers 
both  in  text  and  in  interpretation,  it  may  be  of  interest  to  subjoin 
the  comment  on  it  made  by  Niceta,  Archbishop  of  Thessalonica, 
who  published  a  Greek  Epitome  of  the  Acts  of  Thomas  which  has 
been  unearthed  by  Professor  Bonnet.  The  date  when  this  Niceta 
flourished  is  uncertain,  but  it  must  have  been  before  the  middle  of 
the  eleventh  century.  After  giving  a  paraphrase  of  the  Hymn, 
Niceta  says  (Analecta  Bollandiana  xx  163)  :  "  Thus,  if  I  have  rightly 
gauged  the  meaning  of  these  parabolic  words,  the  inspired  Apostle 
clearly  indicates  in  his  description  the  fair  origin  of  our  race  in 
the  image  of  God,  the  incorruptible  wealth  of  graces  thence 
derived,  the  spiritual  armour  wherewith  we  are  furnished  for  the 
fight  against  those  who  are  spiritually  called  Egyptians  and  against 
the  Old  Serpent  their  leader  and  champion.  We  see  their  plots, 
their  wiles,  their  charms,  the  inevitable  fall  of  those  who  trust  in 
them,  the  consequent  waste  of  divine  wealth,  the  lingering  taint  of 
sins,  shadowed  forth  in  the  poem  by  sleep  and  torpor ;  then  the 
compassion  from  on  high,  the  help  afforded  by  the  Holy  Scriptures 
as  if  by  a  letter,  after  the  arrival  of  which  comes  the  turn,  the 
awakening,  the  enlightenment  through  baptism,  whereby  we  re- 
cover the  precious  Pearl.  And  in  addition  to  all  this  we  see  the 
rejoicing  which  our  God  and  Father  and  the  Divine  Powers  around 
Him  make  at  the  return  and  the  recall  of  them  that  have  fallen, 
and  finally  the  safe  arrival  of  those  eternal  rewards  which  God  has 
prepared  for  those  that  wholly  turn  unto  Him.  Strengthening  by 
these  words  the  timid  and  doubtful  disposition  of  our  souls  and 
teaching  us  how  by  means  of  them  we  are  to  lead  a  new  life,  dead 
as  we  have  become  in  sins,  the  Apostle  Thomas  left  an  eternal 


228  THE   HYMN   OF   THE   SOUL 

consolation  not  only  for  those  then  in  the  prison  but  also  for  all 
faint-hearted  souls  throughout  the  ages." 

It  is  worth  noticing  that  Niceta  does  not  doubt  that  the  doctrine 
of  the  Hymn  is  orthodox.  In  fact,  the  view  that  it  is  anything  else 
than  a  Christian  document  is  the  conjecture  of  modern  scholars. 


PRINTED   AT  THE   EDINBURGH   PRESS,   9   AND    II    YOUNG   STREET. 


